Allianz National Hurling League Division 1 Group B: Antrim 1-21 Clare 0-22
ANTRIM manager Darren Gleeson picked out the mentality of his players as the most pleasing quality from the list his charges displayed in yesterday’s two-point win over Clare in Division 1B.
The Glensmen, in with the big dogs again after promotion last year showed no signs of being out of their depth. Even after they went 9-3 down in the season opener they matched the Bannermen in the skill, physicality and workrate departments and rallied to clinch a fully deserved morale-boosting win.
With Kilkenny at Nowlan Park to come next week, Gleeson knows his men will face challenge after challenge. He has no doubt that they will meet each one head on.
“The mentality (pleased me most),” said Gleeson after the 1-21 to 0-22 victory at Corrigan Park.
“They don’t need me to reset them, they reset themselves. They have a strong mentality. When they’re with their clubs they believe they can beat anyone – they just need to bring that into the saffron jersey.”
Antrim’s unity of purpose was reminiscent of the best club teams and beating Clare, League champions in 2016, will reinforce their self-belief for next weekend’s trip to Kilkenny which is followed by clashes with Dublin, Wexford and then Laois.
“We don’t go out with the mentality that we’re going to stay with 10 points of them – it’s nil-all at the start and we’ll see what happens at the end and that’s how we play it,” said Gleeson.
“I was positive that these lads can play at the highest level so now they have to find out whether they can back up that performance with another performance and keep the momentum going in the League because the League is massive for us.”
With Tony Kelly outstanding, Clare had shaded the early stages but Gleeson insisted that he was never concerned that his players would recover from a nervous start.
“I wasn’t worried,” he said.
“That has happened to us before where we hit a little spot for 10 or 15 minutes. I never worry about the lads because they are able to switch back to themselves, they have a strong mentality so I wasn’t worried.
“There are things you do in training where you say: ‘we’re ‘x’ amount of points down, let’s try and build it back’ and the lads brought forward what they do on the training field.
“You are never going to run away from a team like Clare and sometimes playing into the breeze suits us. Last year we played better into the breeze on a number of occasions because it creates that natural room inside. Today we were a bit cluttered playing with it – it was nip-and-tuck but we dogged it out and I like that.”
Clare went into the game under a cloud. The noises coming out of the county during the off-season had not been positive but manager Frank Lohan insisted the negative discord had not been a factor in his team’s performance.
“It was always going to be a very competitive game up here,” said Lohan.
“Antrim are a big, strong team and the basic is that you have the same amount of hunger and desire as the opposition and we weren’t able to match them.
“There is a lot of pressure on now, you have to get results and you have to win and if you don’t you’re under pressure regardless of who you are.
“The biggest disappointment was the appetite around the breaking ball – we were cleaned out of it. It wasn’t just one Antrim man under the break, there were sometimes two or three on every one of those breaks and we were cleaned out. That’s the most disappointing.”
