Ulster Senior Championship
PAUL McKillen was “proud” of the way Antrim battled back to get on level terms with Down in the second half of the Littlewoods National League Division Two final a fortnight ago and the attempt to book a place in an Ulster senior final against the Mourne county.
Before that, they must navigate an Ulster semi-final against Derry to book a place in the provincial decider on July 10 and the former Antrim hurling star believes they can take great heart from their performance in the recent league final defeat to Down.
“Down are a class team. They had got a couple of goals ahead of us at half-time and things didn’t look too good. But we battled back to go level with about five minutes left and that took some character," said McKillen.
“When you look back on the game, the two goals just before half-time were big scores. We had played very well in that first half and if we had been able to hold out to the break, we might have had a different result.”
“Yes, we made mistakes in the game and we have talked about playing at a level now where you pay for your mistakes. We have asked the girls to take a look again at the recording of the final, see if we could have done things a little better and then learn from it.
“We have reached two finals now and Down has beaten us in both. But we have two more competitions ahead of us this summer and I think that we are in a good place to build on what we have done so far.”
Reaching that Division Two final involved beating Saturday's opponents Derry in their group game and McKillen is expecting another competitive encounter this weekend as they also look to hone their preparations for the All-Ireland intermediate championship at the end of July.
“We played really well in our league game with Derry last month up in Owenbeg. That was a very good game of camogie and I think I said after it that Ulster camogie is in a good place with Derry, Down and ourselves all up there in contention for trophies and pushing each other on," he said.
“It would be a great lead into the All-Ireland intermediate if we were to get two Ulster championship games over the next two weekends."
Antrim’s injury problems are also on the mend, with Maeve Connolly (groin) and Chloe Drain (broken jaw) expected to return to full training within a couple of weeks.
It was feared that Maeve Kelly had broken a finger towards the end of the league final. Instead the finger was out of joint and the Ballycastle forward is expected to start against Derry.
