By Kevin Herron
Terry McCrudden believes that Lamh Dhearg face a difficult task against an excellent Cargin side on Sunday as the winners of the last two senior Football Championships clash in the Northern Switchgear decider at Corrigan Park (3.30 throw-in).
Cargin had been lying in wait since their semi-final victory over St Galls on September 22nd and on Monday evening it was the 2017 champions Lamh Dhearg that prevailed from the epic trilogy with Portglenone on a scoreline of 2-08-0-09.
McCrudden believes that the three games in nine days has had an impact in his side’s preparations ahead of Sunday’s game – with mental and physical fatigue as well as injury concerns.
“We’ve had a very difficult period recently” admits McCrudden.
“We’ve had three and a half games in ten days and a lot of the boys are very tired, we’re nursing a number of injuries – so it’s going to difficult for us, no doubt about it. We’ll do our own preparation, we’ll prepare like we do for every other game and we’ll give it everything we’ve got on the day”.
“Cargin are big favourites with everybody – including the bookies and we understand that, it’s not hard to understand why. They are an excellent team and the County champions. They beat St Galls along the way and we absolutely respect them”.
Former County player McCrudden believes that hype generated by the semi-final tussle with Portglenone will continue into Sunday’s final.
Last Thursdays replay at the Dub generated over 3,500 viewers on the Official Antrim twitter for the dramatic free-kick climax which was called to halt and Monday evenings replay also received a massive coverage around Ireland.
McCrudden doesn’t believe that the hype will die down and insists that his side will continue to focus and prepare diligently and leave the hype to one side.
“There has been a lot of hype built up over the unusual set of circumstances against Portglenone” McCrudden acknowledged.
“As a result of those three terrific games, the Antrim club championship has got a lot of spotlight in Ulster and throughout Ireland. With the final coming up I think the focus and the hype will continue”.
“On the final itself, Cargin are massive favourites in the majority of people’s eyes. We’ll just do our diligent preparations and get ourselves prepared for whatever happens on Sunday”.
The Lamhs and Cargin are no strangers to Championship meetings – they last met in the decider back in 2015 when Cargin romped to victory at Ahoghill and last year Damian Cassidy’s side prevailed in a replay at Corrigan Park to dethrone the Lamhs on the way to Championship success.
You would have to go back to 2011 for the last time the Hannahstown men tasted a Championship win over the Toome side – as goals from Brendan Herron and Conor Murray brought the Lamhs back from the dead to secure a quarter-final win at Casement Park.