ANTRIM minor hurling manager Ciaran Kearney insists that critics of the senior set-up should take a step back when assessing the Saffrons’ present fortunes.
In his first year as boss, the Cushendall man guided Antrim to their 13th Ulster minor title in 14 years, with their reward an All-Ireland quarter-final against Dublin at Kingspan Breffni Park on Sunday.
Kearney firmly believes the work behind the scenes will eventually bear fruit at senior level.
“People say Antrim hurling’s in an absolute mess because the seniors haven’t performed the way they should this year but they don’t realise the work that’s going into the development squads,” he said.
“We’ve probably never done as much work with those squads, but that can’t translate to the senior team for another five years – a lot of these fellas are 15, 16 and 17, so our fortunes are not going to change right away.
“The Antrim teams are travelling around the country as much as possible to get games against high profile teams – not only to compete but to win, because if you’re not going down with ambitions to win then you’re wasting your time.”
Kearney is at the coalface of these efforts. After facile Ulster Championship victories over Down and Derry, his squad played challenge matches against Galway and the Kilkenny’s U17s.
Kearney concedes that the ease with which Antrim won yet another provincial title presents a potential roadblock to the long-term development of his players.
“We would consider ourselves as a strong team this year and we don’t want to be winning games by 15 points before going to play a team like Dublin, but we’re not disrespectful of Derry or Down as they have their rightful place in Ulster,” he said.
“However, if you’re asking would we rather have close-run games where we’re winning by a point or two then of course that’s going to be the case.
“Ultimately for us, success isn’t categorised in just winning an All-Ireland quarter-final. If we win a quarter-final and none of these players play for Antrim seniors then what’s the point?”
The Saffrons are facing a Dublin team who lost the Leinster final by just two points to Kilkenny, 1-17 to 1-15.
If Antrim are to spring an upset, they’re going to have to do it the hard way as they will be without a number of key players through injury, notably prolific Loughgiel forward James McNaughton (right).
“We’re missing a couple of players. James, who’s one of our best forwards, has a broken metacarpal in his thumb and had to go for an operation so will be out for a couple of months,” he said.
“At the weekend Ciaran Leech damaged his AC joint in his shoulder so he’s missing and Shea Hunter hasn’t recovered in time from a long-term injury.”
“They’re three forwards, which is a huge blow as they’re three of our more experienced players.”
Antrim’s forward line, until now spearheaded by James McNaughton and his namesake Christy, have racked up big totals in this year’s championship to date – 4-17 against Down was followed by 2-20 against Derry in the provincial final – and despite being hit with injuries Kearney still believes their forward line has the potential to cause Dublin problems.
“I said at the start of the year that we had more forward options than we had defensive options.
“If we’d had those kind of blows in our defence it may have been an issue but we’re able to bring in another couple of lads into the forward line and we’re confident with them.
“We have 29 players in the panel and we’d be happy with any of them taking the field but we have probably more forwards than defenders – we probably purposely kept it like because sometimes that’s where Antrim have struggled.”
