May, you come back again

No disguising the fact that Saturday night was a disappointment to all those who follow Antrim. Yes, the main aim of the league campaign was achieved with something to spare and Antrim will compete in Division 2 of the NFL next year. However Saturday offered a chance of a national title and the promise of a night to remember at Croke Park. In the event we were soundly beaten by deserving Div 3 champions Sligo, on a night when too many Antrim players posted sub par performances.

On the day before the game one observor told me he was anxious about the Div 3 final because, as appropriate, all of Antrim's training was geared towards the 23rd May date V Tyrone. The fear was that too many consecutive heavy training sessions would result in a laden performance on the night. Whether that was a factor or not I don't know but it was clear that the pace which was a feature of earlier league performances wasn't on display on the night.

When it all comes down though, Saturday night's result will be a mere footnote in a league campaign which saw Antrim take a successive promotion and if everything falls into place against Tyrone then the Sligo match will be long forgotten. It should be pointed out also that Sligo played well on the night, very well. Some of their scores were pure quality and they will have plenty to say in the Connaught championship in June. Good luck to them.

The reaction in some quarters to the result and performance has been over the top. The Antrim players have not become poor gaelic footballers over night and when recounting the fact that three from the last four matches have been lost it is worth pointing out that against Offally we lost by 1 point while being severely hampererd by injury; against Wexford the promotion mission had already been accomplished. A team which goes from Division 4 to Division 2 is a quality outfit with sound management. Supporters should now put their trust in that management to correct what needs correcting and stay focussed on the main event - Tyrone on 23rd May.

The support in Croke Park was sizeable, passionate and vocal. So too the crowds at home games in this year's league. Same again next month - it's the least Antrim deserves.

Antrim captain thrilled by early Croke return

Antrim captain Colin Brady told Antrim supporters this morning that it was a thrill for him to be returning to another Croke Park final so soon after St Gall's St Patrick's day triumph in the All Ireland club final.

Colin was speaking during the breakfast event organised by fundraising body Club Aontroma. The event attracted 170 guests to the Wellington Park Hotel in Belfast and was sponsored by Irwin's Bakery. Antrim football manager Liam Bradley was the guest of honour and he revealed that John Finnucane, (Goalkeeper), CJ McGourty (centre half forward) and Micheal Magill (full forward) are the main changes from the most recent league game V Wexford.

Brady said that to return to Croke Park with Antrim so quickly after the St Patrick's day milestone was a thrill. "It's great to be back there so quickly and to be playing there with Antrim. It's the best stadium in the country and its the place where every footballer wants to play. To get there twice in such a short space of time is great."

Antrim V Sligo

Antrim and Sligo have been on similar trajectories over the last few seasons. Both have achieved successive promotions and both fell to Kerry in last year's All Ireland qualifier series. Both will be eyeing up their respective provincial championships and each will want to use this Saturday's Divisional Final as an opportunity to get ready for the summer.

Last year Sligo won the Division 4 final, by 2 points. That one win over Antrim was bookended by two Saffron victories in the round robin league series in 2009 and 2010 - arguably the more important fixtures. This season's league final takes on more significance in part because both teams have moved up a Division and partly due to the venue. It is not often that Antrim, or indeed Sligo, feature at headquarters and the players and supporters alike will relish the occassion.

For my money, Antrim have made more progress than the Yeatsmen in recent years, and the manner in which we secured promotion was blotted only by a 1 point defeat to Offaly (the last fixture not to feature the St Galls men) and a 2 point reversal to Wexford when promotion was already secured. Those two defeats came at either end of a imperssive and crushing home win over Louth. Truth is if we don't take the league title on Saturday night we will actually have lost three from the last four competitive matches. For that reason alone, and because winning is a positive habit, it is important to beat Sligo on Saturday.

With Michael Magill back and an almost full squad to choose from (only Kevin Niblock is ruled out) Antrim should prove too strong. Michael and Thomas McCann, along with James Loughrey should enjoy the wide open spaces of Croke Park and will hopefully run at the Sligo defence from early on.

Silverware would be a just reward for the work the squad has put in, a Croke Park victory over Div 2 opposition would be a notable step forward for our county.

We travel with hope, and with justifiable optimism.

We're on the one road......

Coming from one of the few genuine dual counties in the GAA Antrim fans are no strangers to Croke Park, our hurlers in particular having featured at HQ on a fairly regular basis since the late 1980s. However heading down Jones' Road to see the saffron footballers was once a novelty, with a gap of almost 20 years separating the 1989 league quarter final appearance V Kerry, and the 2007 Tommy Murphy final.

Since '07 when the final V Wicklow was lost we turned the tables in '08 in the last ever TMC final and now, in 2010 we will be back again at Croke Park, and again chasing a national title, the Division 3 NFL, with Sligo in opposition. The big, big days seem to be inching closer and closer.

These days at matches I am typically accompanied by two sons (the youngest one hasn't qualified for a travel permit yet) and they are quite accustomed to (i) seeing Antrim in Croke Park and (ii) seeing Antrim in finals. In their few years supporting the saffrons next Saturday will be their 5th (fifth!!) 'final'. Eight and six 6 year olds don't make value judgements on the TMC and rightly so.

The occassion should be a big one, and let's hope that Antrim fans travel in numbers for the Division 3 final. Hopefully the GAA centrally will put a bit of a marketing push behind the finals weekend and we have an evening to remember. The hard work of this league has already been done and while it would be terrific to lift the trophy, the achievement of successive promotions is already huge. Two seasons ago the team stumbled at the end of a Div 4 campaign which had promised but didn't deliver. We have a come long way since then.

Next year's league will see Antrim playing Derry, Laois, Tyrone, Meath, Kildare, Sligo and Donegal. None of those teams are to be feared and many of them offer challenges to relish.

In May the serious business begins, before that one last league hurrah for 2010 and where better to have it than Pairc an Chrocaigh. It will be our visit to headquarters of 2010. First of many??

Antrim V Wexford, NFL Div 2

While we muse on the fate of our hurlers - whose form and status is surely somewhere in the middle of where the doom merchants have us, and the inappropriately over optimistic Dinny has us - and await the final round of football league matches, let's look back at what I think was the last time we played Wexford in a league game.

I'll get off to a poor start here because I can't remember the exact date, or for that matter the year. At times like this I wish I had picked up my Dad's habit of collecting and saving the programme from every match he was at. I suspect the year was towards the end of the 1980's and, like this weekend, it was an away fixture which was set to have a bearing on that year's promotion race. The league record of Antrim teams from that era was quite positive, although always and rightly overshadowed by perennial failure in the championship. We were good then - and the team of that era included players like Lenny Harbinson, Stephen Mulvenna, Chris Murphy, Paul McErlean, Enda McAtamney, Locky McCurdy amongst others.

The team reached a national league quarter final which was lost famously to Kerry in Croke Park in 1989 (surely some sort of 'wonder year' for Saffron fans?) and I think the match against the model county was in or around that era. In the late 80's we also had notable league victories against Mayo and Meath in Casement, and I think we went through one league season unbeaten only to fall in a promotion play off against Tyrone. Good times, good days out and a good team too.

A few of us hardy souls headed down to the Wexford game, which formed the centrepiece of a Sunday Tribune article on the fortunes of Antrim and team manager Eamonn Grieve. The journalist noted those at the majority of support amongst the sparse crowd came from Antrim. The feature concluded with the suggestion that Antrim were on the verge of making a Championship breakthrough. Unfortunately that turned out to be a decade early and indeed on the day we lost the Wexford game, by a narrow margin and like many other games involving the Saffrons it was one we could have won.

Back to the present day and the possible permutations of this weekend have received plenty of column inches and unfortunately much of it is incorrect. The Irish Times, the GAA's official website and the A'Town News all have Antrim promoted already - we would like to think that is the case but it is not official yet. Quite simply a win or draw means we are up no matter other results. Should Sligo fail to beat Roscommon (already relegated) then we are up no matter how we fare against the model county. If the Yeatsmen win then we will be promoted so long as we don't fall to a 11+ points defeat - and indeed in those circumstances Sligo would need a similar scale win to deprive us of our second successive promotion.

However all of this should be academic. The present Antrim team is capable of turning in a performance which will account for Wexford and leave them battling for second spot. Our team has come too far and is simply too good to leave promotion behind at this stage. Still, radios at the ready.

No teams news yet - but it is hard to see wholesale changes from the team which dismantled Louth.

Antrim V Down, NHL Div 2

As one Antrim team makes its way towards Division 2 of the NFL, it is to be hoped that the other senior inter county representatives don't head in the opposite direction. There is a real danger, following last weekend's defeat to Westmeath, that our hurlers could end up in a relegation battle. The permutations are multiple, but to put it as simply as possible, if we beat neighbours Down in Casement on Sunday, we'll be safe in Div 2 for another year. Lose the derby match and we will be in real danger of heading to Mayo, Armagh and Meath for games next year in Div 3. The vagaries of the 'head to head' system for separating teams finishing level on points means that we could wind up looking for something in Wexford to maintain our Div 2 status. That is not a prospect o relish.

Dinny is reported in this morning's Irish News as saying that he is happy with the league so far, that it has given him an opportunity to experiment with players and positions. The team has been hampered with the absence of St Gall's players to date, although Karl Stewart is due to return for Sunday's encounter. Straight red cards for Liam Watson (against Laois) and Shane McNaughton (V Westmeath) deprives the management of those two players who are serving bans.

Even during his first term as manager Cahill paid scant attention to the league, with the winter and spring work on the training field all aimed at a peaking at Championship time. If we bow out of Div 2 hurling and make little impact against Offaly on May 30th the season will be regarded in very poor light.

However there is another side to the story which shows that (i) we ran Clare very close in our best league performance to date, (ii) we lost to Westmeath by 1 point, (iii) victory over Carlow should be seen in a new light following their win over Clare, (iv) in Paul Shiels amd Neil McManus we have two young hurlers who continue to shine very brightly. Does all of that point to the resurrection of our league campaign this Easter Sunday? I'm keeping the faith, and saying yes.

In football news, Michael Magill continues to make good progress on his hamstring injury although he is unlikely to be back for the Wexford game next Sunday and the Division 3 final seems a more realistic target.

Club Aontroma is planning a business / fndraising breakfast with Liam Bradley on April 23rd, in the Wellington Park Hotel. If you want to have 'Breakfast with the Baker' visit the website, www.clubaontroma.com and get in touch.