Glen Dimplex Senior Championship
ANTRIM manager Elaine Dowds is calling on her team to “play without pressure” for the next two matches, starting this Saturday with the visit of Kilkenny to Dunloy and then a fortnight later when they entertain Galway.
“Look we are playing the two teams that have won the last four All-Ireland championship titles and the Division One league since 2016. They are the best teams in the country over the last few years. I know it is a cliché, but all the management wants is for the players to give everything on the pitch and we will see where we are after that," Dowd said.
Dowds, who was in the last management team with Paul McKillen and Jim McKernan and stayed on to form her own backroom team, believes that pressure got to the team in the last game, a draw on the Ards peninsula with Down.
“We had beaten Down in the Ulster final at the end of April and we felt that was a monkey off our back. We had beaten them before, at the start of last year, but never in a final," she said.
“Then we were really pleased how things went against Offaly in the first game. But we shot nine wides in the first half in Ballycran, probably the same in the second and ended up being happy enough to get a draw.
“It can be frustrating when your game plan works and you get the scoring chances, but can’t take them. That is the pressure of playing at the top level. But that is where we want to be and it is where we want to stay. If we learn how to cope with the pressure, we will do well enough at senior level.”
The former inter-county forward from Dunloy won two intermediate titles in three seasons with Antrim two decades ago, but at that time the winners didn’t automatically move up to senior.
“I’m not really sure how that worked at the time. I remember playing Kilkenny seniors in a challenge game around that time and beating them. Jim Nelson sent us out to 'play the best we can'.
“Kilkenny probably had some of their subs on, but no-one expected us to win and we did. But there was no pressure on us at all.
“When we played at intermediate levels over the last couple of seasons, we made mistakes and they never really cost us because the game was slower. So we didn’t examine the mistakes too much. Now, at senior level, they are much more costly. It is a massive change.
“You have to highlight mistakes to learn from them and that can be counter-productive because players then become too nervous about repeating them. That is a pressure that we have to learn to deal with, players and management.
“We have to strike a balance between correcting the mistakes, but not over-analysing every part of every game. Sometime we can be hard on ourselves. I am guilty of that and I have to learn to stand back at times and take a couple of deep breaths.”
Nevertheless Dowds, one of only two women managing teams in the senior championship (the other is Offaly’s Susan Earner), is looking forward to Saturday's test against Kilkenny.
“It’s in Dunloy. There is always a good crowd for a game in Dunloy and they will get behind any Antrim team playing there. We trained there at the weekend and we are excited about the game.
“Every player wants to play at the top level, test themselves against the best. Now we are getting the chance and we are coming into the game unbeaten as well after our first two games.
“We will have a plan, but Kilkenny will probably have something to counter us as well. It’s a cliché but we will just ask them to give everything and the result will tell us where we are.”
