IT was a score straight out of Cargin. With Antrim and Leitrim tied entering stoppage-time in Corrigan Park last Sunday, Justin Crozier picked up possession and clipped the perfect kick pass into space for Tomas McCann to run on to.
The fleet-footed attacker cut in from the left and let fly to secure yet another one-point win in Division Four to set up a promotion shoot-out with Waterford in Dungarvan next Sunday.
Division Four is no place for the faint-hearted. McCann knows a thing or two about its terrain.
For the best part of an inter-county career that stretches back to the mid-Noughties and days of the Tommy Murphy Cup, the gifted Cargin forward has played the vast majority of his League football in the basement.
In 2017, Antrim suffered relegation from Division Three on the last day of the season and have remained rooted there ever since.
Under new boss Enda McGinley, Antrim are 70 minutes away from promotion after edging out Louth, Sligo and Leitrim in consecutive weekends.
“Division Four is different to any other,” says McCann, who made his Antrim senior debut against Kilkenny in 2005 as an 18-year-old.
“When you play the top teams there are more one-on-one duels where sometimes in Division Four there is a lot of collective defensive play. It’s nearly harder because a lot of teams don’t come out, whereas a lot of teams in Division One, Two and even in Division Three would come out to a certain extent and back themselves.
“In Division Four, teams pitch a score and hope to hang on. Whenever we came out of Division Four, just from a forward’s point of view, the higher divisions were slightly easier to play in because there weren’t as many men in defence. That’s just me, maybe. There might be other players who felt differently but that’s what I found.
“Division Four is a different mentality; you just need to dog it out in the games. If you want to get out of Division Four you really need to work your way through games and battle because the teams are hard-hitting in Division Four. Because there is less space in the forward line you’d get clipped very easily too.”
Part of Cargin's three-in-a-row championship winning team, McCann has enjoyed some good days in the saffron jersey too, most notably their Ulster Championship victory over Donegal in 2009 when it was his crucial goal that sunk John Joe Doherty’s men in Ballybofey.
Under Liam ‘Baker’ Bradley, Antrim went on to reach their first Ulster final in 39 years and enjoyed the thinner air of Division Two football in 2011 before skidding back down the ranks.
Former boss Lenny Harbinson was unlucky on a couple of occasions not to gain promotion but in 2021 Antrim find themselves in probably the best place they’ve been in for quite some time.
McGinley had lift-off following their opening day victory to Mickey Harte’s Louth and have built on that display since.
McGinley is brother-in-law to Tomas and Mick McCann – but that relationship plays no part in their thinking when they hit the field.
“You can tell Enda and Stevie [O’Neill] come from a driven atmosphere with Tyrone with their own experiences,” McCann says.
“There is nothing really complicated. Enda is the manager, and I understand that. You try not to make it too awkward for him and he knows Mick and me will be at his back for whenever regardless of what he decides. It’s not a big issue for him or us.”
McCann has been plagued with hamstring trouble since he sustained a serious tear in the Ulster Championship defeat to Cavan last November.
He tweaked a hamstring again soon after re-joining the Antrim panel in 2021 but got some sorely needed minutes in the Sligo and Leitrim wins – and hopes the week’s break before the make-or-break Waterford clash will bring him on even more.
“There is a good atmosphere around the group. It is tough from my own perspective trying to come back into that environment with everybody flying and you’re trying to play catch-up, and you’re wary of pushing it too much.
“Touch wood, I’m moving rightly at the moment and I’m just enjoying being part of it.”
