Allianz National Hurling League Division 2A promotion play-off: Antrim v Carlow (Saturday, Newry, 3pm)
IF Division 2A was starting now Westmeath would be a shoo-in to make the League final and Carlow and Antrim would fight it out for second spot.
Instead, it’s Antrim and Carlow who face off in Newry this afternoon as they battle for a place in next season’s Division 1B.
No longer do the winners of Division 2A face the extra hurdle of facing the bottom team in 1B in a relegation/promotion play-off.
Very impressive in Cushendall last Sunday, Westmeath will be kicking themselves over their dismal start to the League campaign. Losing to Carlow and Kildare effectively sealed their fate.
It was Carlow and Antrim who hit the ground running on February 12, and it has paid dividends.
The two sides couldn’t be separated in Dr Cullen Park last month, with Carlow’s trajectory slightly better than Antrim’s ahead of this afternoon’s vital showdown.
It would have taken a dramatic set of results for Antrim to miss out on the chance of promotion, which may partially explain their below-par showing against Westmeath last Sunday.
And yet, while Westmeath looked far superior to their hosts in sunny Cushendall, Antrim were still in the game right to the final whistle without hitting the heights.
“To be honest, the Westmeath defeat was probably the kick in the arse we needed,” said wing-back Simon McCrory.
“Westmeath are probably the best team in the League as they’ve been playing Liam MacCarthy for the last four or five years.
“A lot of things we had in the plan didn’t work out but it will keep us grounded and keep us focused for what’s ahead of us.”
If you’re going to have an off-day, have it just before a big game.
Antrim expect to be better for their second, most crucial meeting with Carlow today.
The Antrim management team of Terence McNaughton, Gary O’Kane, Dominic McKinley and Neal Peden have been quite conservative in their team selections, making minimal changes from game to game in Division 2A.
But there will probably be five or six players not so sure of their place in Newry today.
That insecurity will have been keenly felt in training during the week and should bring a certain edge to their preparations.
Tactically, Antrim need to be more flexible too. From an attacking perspective, they have been a little predictable in their play.
Their half-backs and midfielders have been hitting diagonal balls into their corner-forwards – Ciaran Clarke and Conor Johnston – although the latter was moved back to wing-forward last Sunday to fit the ever-improving Déaglán Murphy into the side.
But the diagonal pass has had mixed results.
Against a physically dominant Westmeath side, Antrim’s livewire forwards struggled to make headway and sorely need some ball winners in their attack.
Carlow, in many respects, are a carbon copy of Westmeath – as Peden noted last week: “Carlow are a physical team, they’ve a physical half-back line and we’ve to overcome that. We felt we were faster and sharper than them when we played them, but they had that physicality over us.”
That’s why the Newry venue isn’t in Antrim’s favour.
Hurling-wise, Pairc Esler is not the biggest of fields. And for Antrim’s tricky forwards to prosper they need space.
“We’ve obviously got really lively forwards – Ciaran Clarke, Conor Johnston, just name a couple – but we couldn’t really get them into the game [against Westmeath] and that was because the work they were doing at the back,” said McCory.
“So we’ll have to sit down and look at it and see what we can do to counteract that. Teams are getting to know these boys and they’re going to target them.
“Maybe we need to have another trick and it’s something we can look at.”
There was a time when Carlow were easy meat for Antrim.
But those days are long gone.
The Leinster men hammered Antrim up in Ballycastle last year with eight of their squad involved in the drawn encounter on February 19.
Denis Murphy, Jack Kavanagh and Kevin McDonald remain key players for them.
With so much resting on the outcome of today’s clash, it could be another tight affair.
For Antrim to prosper they need to produce a 70-minute performance and will need Clarke, Johnston and Murphy to be at their goal-poaching best.
If they are, the Saffrons could be the team going up a division next season.
