31 March 2014
Yesterday was something of a rarity for Antrim fans, a day when our footballers and hurlers won their respective league games. Our footballers accounted for London, on a 3.15 - 1.10 scoreline when after a jittery start at Creggan which saw us fall behind by 3 points, Tomas McCann and Brian Neeson were to the fore in in spearheading the Antrim comeback. Ahead by 1 point at half time, Antrim dominated the second period and won comfortably.
Next up is Clare, also at Creggan, next Sunday. Clare arrive looking for the win they need to secure promotion so this is nothing like the 'dead rubber' which some end of league games can be. Antrim will be keen to clock up successive wins which would go some way to make up for the disappointing league campaign. In all of our games to date we have scored highly, and the responsibility for scores has been shared among the forwards. Baker and co will be looking to end the league in better fashion than we started.
Yesterday in Ballycastle our senior hurlers played the game of the year so far. Again a slow start had Antrim in trouble but towards the end of the first half unanswered 1.4 meant the half time deficit was reduced to 3 points. It was all to play for.
During that second period Antrim upped their game and Offaly couldn't match us. Paul Shiels was in terrific form but so was the whole team in truth. The defence was solid and held the visitors to 3 points in the second period while registering 10. There were leaders in all sections of the pitch and this was a fully deserved victory which keeps us in Division 1B next for 2015.
With no relegation / promotion play off to distract Antrim we can look ahead to the Leinster Championship and the new ‘round robin’ format which throws up 4 games in 5 weeks:
Home to Westmeath, 27th April
Away to Carlow 4 May
Home to London 11 May
Away to Laois 25 May.
The winners and runners up of this group will head into the Leinster Quarter finals.
Also over the weekend our minor footballers continued their strong run of performances with a 2.10 to 1.10 win over Derry while in the Leinster minor hurling league final our young hurlers lost out 1.15 to 1.13
It was a good weekend to be an Antrim fan, haven't said that in a while, hopefully there is more to come.