ANTRIM defender James Laverty has warned his team-mates that starting games as they did against Leitrim on Sunday could lead to “embarrassment” during the summer.
The Saffrons ended up comfortable victors over Shane Ward’s side in Corrigan Park, with Tomás McCann’s first-half goal sparking a dominant last 40 minutes. Brian Neeson capped it off with a superb late goal that put a 10-point sheen on the final margin of victory. But they could have as easily found themselves out of the game inside the first half-hour.
A totally dominant Leitrim led 0-6 to 0-2 and should have been further ahead, but two missed goal chances were at the forefront of some wasteful finishing from the visitors. The Cargin man was one of the few bright sparks during that spell as he turned in a terrific 70 minutes in defence.
But after a good start that included a home win over Wexford, he was conscious of the complacency that blighted their start. And the former St Patrick’s, Maghera student says the Division Four table-toppers must learn from the experience.
“Tomás got the goal, which came from the defence taking the ball off them. Goals win games and that gave us a cushion and we kicked on from there," McCann added.
“The only worrying thing is that we haven’t played for the full 70 yet, but we can always work on that for the next couple. That goal that we got definitely settled us and we need to learn from that. We definitely can’t give teams a head start, especially in Ulster.
“You’re playing against teams from Division Two up and, if we give anyone that chance in the Championship, it’s going to be an embarrassment. We’ve learnt the lesson with what happened out there. We’d like to think teams would not be getting those chances again.”
With a trip to London followed by a home clash against Waterford to come, there is a growing school of thought that Antrim have done a lot of the hard work already. Laverty, though, was keen to wipe away such talk.
“London gave us a good, hard game in Cargin last year. And if I’m being serious, Waterford should have beaten us down there last year, they missed a penalty," he added.
“We’ll be taking nothing for granted. It showed out there [against Leitrim]. We got a wee bit complacent in the first-half and that showed that we can’t be.”
Having touched down in Division Two briefly, they were relegated back to the bottom tier in 2013. Since then, Antrim have started among the frontrunners each season, but have failed to climb off the bottom rung.
“Division Four, we’ve been complacent for about three years now and we’re still there. We need to get the heads down and get out of this and get a better standard of football, playing against better teams," McCann said.
“We’ve been saying this for the last two years. We’re there because we put ourselves there. If we beat these boys, we’ll be playing better teams in Division Three next year. That’s where we want to be. Division Four is one of the toughest divisions because everyone wants out.
“Other divisions, teams want to cement and keep their position and not get relegated. But everyone wants out of Division Four, so every game’s a Championship game.”
