Armagh City Hotel Ulster Senior Championship final
Antrim v Down (Saturday, Rossa Park, Belfast, 2pm)
THE 86th Ulster senior camogie final will take place in Belfast tomorrow with Antrim in search of their 49th title and Down chasing their 21st.
Antrim are the holders after beating the Mourne side 3-12 to 0-14 this time last year, with Róisín McCormick hitting three goals and five points.
That was the third successive final between the pair, while they had also met in the All-Ireland intermediate final of 2020 and the 2021 National League final, with Down winners in all those other games.
The counties have met twice since Antrim broke the sequence.
A couple of weeks after the Ulster final last year, they clashed in Ballycran in the first round of the All-Ireland championship and shared the spoils with a 1-12 each draw that included a goal and nine points from the mercurial Niamh Mallon.
They also met this year in the first round of the Very National League in Portglenone, when Mallon equalled her Ballycran total with 12 points, but Down lost this time by 5-14 to 0-14 with Caitrín Dobbin (2-2) and Róisín McCormick (1-5) doing most of the damage.
Down haven’t played a game since the last weekend of March when they lost heavily to Waterford, while Antrim have had two competitive outings since.
On the first weekend of April, they lost narrowly to Wexford at Portglenone. Their performance that day was good, but they conceded a couple of soft goals.
A fortnight ago they were in action once again in Portglenone, in the Ulster semi-final, but this time the general consensus was that it was a very poor performance from the Saffrons – an opinion that maybe doesn’t do enough justice to a Derry side that put their league form behind them and took the game to Antrim.
Antrim won by a point with the twin strike-force of Dobbin (8 points) and McCormick (4) the difference on the day.
Derry, however, did not allow them to create any goal chances – in contrast to Down in the league at the same venue.
Antrim captain Lucia McNaugthon missed the semi-final due to injury and her absence cannot be under-estimated. She has very much been their leader on the pitch, driving them forward. Too often in that Derry game, Antrim were being put on the back-foot around midfield and half-back.
Niamh Mallon played much of the league with a shoulder injury. Reports suggest that the Portaferry ace is back to full fitness and she will be a big threat once again in the forward line alongside Sara Louise Graffin.
However, the game is more likely to be won in the Down defence. The Mourne county conceded the goals at key moments in the league game when Graffin and Mallon had been doing the business at the other end.
If they can contain Antrim’s forwards to points as Derry did, Down have a good chance of winning.
Both teams will have targeted provincial success as a pathway to something more this summer. Both will want to enter the All-Ireland series on a high.
Antrim’s All-Ireland group may allow them to have aspirations of reaching the quarter-finals for the first time in more than four decades.
Down, on the other hand, have to hope to get something from their first game against Clare. If they don’t, they will be struggling in a relegation play-off at the start of July.
Another way of looking at this fixture is it being the only one that allows either team to collect any silverware this year as they are both still a good way off breaking into the top three or four counties that are constantly contesting league and All-Ireland finals.
Antrim are the favourites to move closer to the half-century.
