Brendan McTaggart gives his views on the Antrim hurling squad update announced this afternoon.
Green shoots have appeared from the Antrim hurling camp this afternoon with team manager Darren Gleeson issuing a press release on the team updates.
Given the horrific injury list that has blighted the Saffrons in 2024, there was welcome news on that front. Conal Cunning and Rian McMullan both returned to training this week having missed the defeat to Tipperary while Conal Bohill, James McNaughton and Michael Bradley are back in full training.
If everything goes to plan; Paul Boyle, Ciaran Clarke, Gerard Walsh, Daniel McKernan, Caolan McKernan, Seamus McAuley and Stephen Rooney will be championship ready while Dubhaltach Wilson and Joe McLaughlin are back in the squad.
Daire mcMullan of Dunloy and Cormac McKeown from Con Magees join fellow Under 20 player Joseph McLaughlin of Ruairi Og
With those returning, Gleeson has also added Sean McKay of Cushendun , Cormac McKeown of Con Magees, Niall McGarel of Shane O’Neills’s Glenarm and Ruairi McCormick of Loughghiel Shamrocks all being promoted from the u20 squad with Dunloy duo Aodhan McGarry and Daire McMullan, but most notably, a quartet of Dunloy players have returned. Keelan Molloy, Seaan, Nigel and Ryan Elliott all coming back into the squad having missed the entire National League campaign.
When leaving Corrigan Park last Saturday, drenched to the skin having watched Antrim come a distant second best to Tipperary, the thought of travelling to Nowlan Park for the opening round of the Leinster Championship was filling not only me with a sense of fear.
There were rumours circling that the Dunloy players were going to come back and in fairness to Darren Gleeson, he’s been up front with the injury list and has maintained all along that he had high hopes that the vast majority of the injuries would be cleared up for the Championship.
Joining from the Under 20 squad are Loughgiel’s Ruairi McCormick (left) and Dunloy’s Aodhan McGarry (right) while Cushendun’s Sean McKay, who played for Ballymena Academy in Monday’s Schools Cup rugby final, also joins the panel
Antrim’s displays so far have been understandably under par in comparison to previous seasons under Gleeson’s tenure. That’s the cold hard fact that the National League final table will tell. But what the 2024 league campaign has done, is unearth the likes of Scott Walsh, Conor Boyd and Fred McCurry as intercounty standard players more than capable at that level. Walsh and Boyd have been with the squad for a number of seasons while Fred’s run with Cushendall in the club championship has transferred to that in a Saffron shirt.
From wondering who’s going to be fit for the starting 15 in the league, Gleeson is now faced with a selection headache. The joys of management.
There will be plenty who will look at the Dunloy quartet coming back with a hint of negativity. ‘Ah they’re back in time for a trip to Portugal’. I can hear the comments already before stepping out of the office. Where were they when we travelled to Thurles to take on Limerick? When we played Galway and Tipp in Corrigan. They could have been the difference against Dublin and lost narrowly and gave us a better display against Westmeath.
The fact of the matter is that those lads needed a break. Still in their mid-twenties, at the end of the club season they were showing serious signs of burnout. Seasons running into seasons, with intercounty, senior club hurling, intermediate championship going deep and the run in the club senior football championship with next to no break in between, it had certainly took a toll.
Defensively, we have looked strong. Our fullback line against Tipperary were immense but it was around the middle of the park where we looked out of our depth. In seasons previous, we had the likes of Molloy and McNaughton showing fleet of foot to evade challenges and break the lines while Nigel Elliott was superb last year in Saffron. Paul Boyle coming back to fitness is another huge bonus. His display against Dunloy in the semi-final of the club championship last year was simply outstanding and he was starting to show a level of consistency with his performances that will certainly give Gleeson options. To have the graft and guile of Bradley, the defensive nous of Conal Bohill along with the wizadry of the McKernan’s, it certainly promises to be a much more promising Championship than League.
Anyone who has watched Antrim during the league will know that it’s been sorely missed for the team’s display but also for the development of the younger players who have been thrown into the deep end this year. They’ve been taught some harsh lessons in 2024 that will certainly stand by them but not what is required for their hurling development at this stage of their career.
Portugal beckons for the warm weather training camp that has been hugely successful in previous seasons while a date with The Cats waits on 21 April. The rumour mill will churn and tongues will wag after this press release but one things for sure, Antrim needed this news. We needed this news.
Aontroim Abu