Tuesday 16 March 2010

Everybody wants to be the man at the top




At half time in the Antrim V Roscommon match I took a phone call from Lawrence Smyth, the official county PRO. Lawrence was worried. Antrim were ahead by three points, but a man down (Dermot McCann having been sent off in the 26th minute), Michael Magill had left the field injured and we faced a stiff second half breeze. Lawrence was worried that three points wouldn't be enough.

He called again at full time. We had held on for a two point win in what he called "a battle royal." It was a welcome update.

Our footballers have now won two games by 8 points, one by a single point and last Sunday we won by two in very trying circumstances. We are winning tight games and open games. We are a winning team.

Liam Bradley has always maintained that 10 points would secure promotion from Division 3, and looking at the permutations, he is right in that assessment. If we win one more game then only Louth can possibly gather the points necessary to overhaul us - and we still have to play them on Saturday week. No other team can reach more than 10 points.

You get the feeling though that the current saffron team will not settle for scraping promotion, Antrim footballers are on a winning run and who is to say we won't finish the league campaign with a maximum haul of 14 points from 14? Momentum is a wonderful dynamic in sport and we have enough now to take us all the way to Tullamore, Wexford and back to Casement.

Next up - back to the scene of one of last year's great adventures, Offaly's county ground and a match against the faithful. We have every reason to be confident of a different scoreline.

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