20 July 2012
It’s a long way to Tipperary, and it’s a long way our senior footballers have travelled already this year. Back in May Antrim lost a game to Monaghan that could have been won. Monaghan are off the summer stage now and Antrim remain in contention. Championship football for you.
Tomorrow Antrim play Tipperary in Round 3 of the football qualifiers. Our record in the qualifiers since Liam Bradley’s arrival has been in marked contrast to previous years. In the first year of the new system Antrim beat Leitrim in the ‘back door’ but between 2002 and 2007 when the Tommy Murphy Cup became the focus, we shipped some very disappointing defeats to a string of teams ranged from Armagh through Meath and Clare. Since 09 we have won 4, drawn 1 and lost 3 qualifier games with defeats coming only at the hands of Kerry, Kildare and Down.
Antrim in the qualifiers is no longer the plum draw for other back door warriors.
You might say that ‘all’ we have to do tomorrow to make more progress than ever before is repeat what the team achieved in February, an away win V Tipp. But that Tipperary team is changed already beyond recognition, to the point where they ran Kerry close in Munster and since then have beaten an out of sorts Offaly and a confident, expectant Wexford. This was a Wexford who should have put away the Dubs and who beat Antrim in Casement in the Spring when the league was up for grabs.
Tipperary’s turn around has been such that the bookmakers make them favourites tomorrow, perhaps in deference to their home venue.
But there is character and resolve in this Antrim team and anyone who was in Casement last Saturday saw that. The win over Galway was by far Antrim’s biggest scalp in recent years and the most satisfying aspect was the reaction of the manager and the players whose individual comments amounted to a collective “we always knew we could win it.”
We will miss Aodhan Gallagher who made a big impact last weekend. But so too did all the subs introduced and that says a lot about the depth and strength of the panel. There could well be 19 or 20 players featuring for Antrim tomorrow over the 70 plus minutes and each one of them will be primed to maximum fitness.
The same belief, character and ambition on display last Saturday should be enough to see the saffrons home tomorrow.
There is an air of 2009 back in the county and ad hoc reports would suggest that Antrim will be well supported in Thurles. It is indeed a long way to Tipperary and any fan who is organising a bus, sharing a lift in a car, postponing a holiday, packing a lunch or unravelling a flag is making their own act of faith in the team. Faith will be rewarded.
Travel safe, Aontroim Abu!
