01 February 2009
Antrim Senior football team were held to a draw in Casement Park today, where they met Wicklow in the first round of the National Football League. Antrim were a visibly improved side, in a number of areas, although yet again they were repeatedly punished for careless and avoidable errors. Wicklow, it could be said, simply profited from our mistakes, scoring all six points from Frees. By contrast Antrim took all of their point scores from play with the exception of one only, from a free.
The Wicklow goals were largely a result of a weakness, detected and exploited in our centre back line. The Wicklow full forward made good use of proffered opportunity. In the end a missed free, almost certainly due to tired legs, was to deny Antrim victory, in the dying minutes of injury time, in a game that they otherwise dominated almost throughout. There was added drama with two missed penalties, one at either end. Two Wicklow players received yellow cards and were sent off towards the end of the game.
Antrim scores came from; Tony Scullion 1, James Loughrey 1 ,Thomás Mc Cann 1, Conor Mc Gourty 1, Conor Murray 2, Paddy Mc Cunningham 2 , Kieran Close 3 , and Michael Mc Cann 4. With this level of scoring the result was disappointing and serves to emphasise the need to minimise or eliminate unforced errors. Against that, and more importantly, it must be said that Antrim are most definitely shaping into a team, a factor borne out by the numbers involved in the final scores. Vigorous and more determined tackling for possession and repossession was also much in evidence; there were fewer occasions of watching unchallenged or uninterrupted opposition play. These are good indications of coordinated team-work; learning to have that essential 'self-belief'. These are early days; we were certainly not defeated today but we otherwise failed to win because we made too many avoidable mistakes and our back line was at times vulnerable. Much will have been learned today; at least eight Antrim players had a very good game on the day. What was really disappointing though was that 'Antrim Supporters' were all too thin on the ground today and lost an opportunity to see some really good football. Lawrence Smyth PRO.
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