31 March 2011
To his credit Liam Bradley has refused all year to point the finger at the treatment table and blame absence through injury for Antrim’s poor league season to date. If he did he would soon run out of fingers, such is the length of the injury list which tonight has been added to by Justin Crozier, who will miss Sunday’s away trip to Donegal with a hamstring injury. Who could readily replace him? Most likely the recalled to the squad St Brigid's man, Deaglan O’Hagan. You know, the guy who broke his thumb at training on Tuesday night...........
Paddy Cunningham and Kevin O’Boyle also miss Sunday’s match with Donegal through injury and by my reckoning Antrim are without 9 of their full squad through injury or suspension, and that is without factoring in James Loughrey. Even today, when speaking to the Antrim website, ‘Baker’ still refused to seek the sympathy vote.
“I’d rather have these injuries now than during the summer. We have five weeks now to get the guys back in action, get the injuries cleared up where we can. Hopefully we are having our season’s worth of bad luck now. But that is what a squad is for and there will certainly be some younger guys getting action on Sunday who may not have otherwise. This is their chance to press for a place in the championship team. Hopefully they can step up to the plate at the weekend.”
Bradley was also looking at the short term future of this Antrim side. “We are still alive in Division 2 and where there are points to be played for we will be looking for them, beginning on Sunday. The lads know they put in an unacceptable performance against Sligo last time out. We talked about it in training the next Tuesday night and they said that themselves. Since then they have worked hard. It looks bad for us right now and we need other matches to go our way but we have 4 points to play for over the next two Sundays and we will be fighting all the way. “
Brendan Mulgrew
