ENDA McGinley has dismissed Saturday’s meeting with his old boss Mickey Harte as a “media circus” that will have no impact on what happens between the white lines of the Division Four showdown between Antrim and Louth.
By a quirk of fate, McGinley’s first match in charge of Antrim happens to be Harte’s debut with the Louth footballers.
The Errigal Ciaran clubmen won three All-Ireland senior titles together in the ‘Noughties’ and after dabbling in club management in recent seasons, McGinley has taken the inter-county plunge with Antrim this year.
Harte, meanwhile, wrong-footed everybody by accepting Louth's offer just a couple of weeks after leaving the Tyrone post after 17 successful seasons.
The plot thickens ahead of Saturday's clash at Geraldine's GFC, Dundalk with former Tyrone great Stevie O’Neill assisting McGinley while 2003 and ’05 All-Ireland winner Gavin ‘Horse’ Devlin has followed Harte to the ‘Wee’ County.
McGinley said: “It’s an interesting side story – us and Mickey – but in terms of our relevance to the story it is absolutely zero, to be honest, because Antrim has a fight on their hands to get out of Division Four.
“Mickey is slightly different in terms of what he’s achieved in the game. After doing all what he did with Tyrone he’s now taken on the challenge of Louth, so there’s a huge story with Mickey and we’re going to face a bunch of players who will be absolutely eating out of Mickey’s hand. We know what Mickey can do for a team.
“The media circus that surrounds Louth means absolutely nothing to him. Stevie and me are well aware that it doesn’t matter one bit about us; it’s about the players on the pitch.”
McGinley added: “It’ll be a big occasion, there’ll be plenty of coverage in it. It’s a summer game of football with plenty of eyes on it and you want to put your best foot forward.”
Allianz National Football League games have had to be rationed in 2021 and played on a regional basis due to the late start to the inter-county season because of COVID.
Antrim and Louth are grouped with Sligo, managed by Tony McEntee, and Leitrim in the Division Four North region.
While most managers would prefer the traditional seven-game NFL campaign, McGinley acknowledges the positives that could come out of the revised format before entering the Ulster Championship.
“As a new management team, the more games you can get, the better because you get to see more players in action,” said McGinley, who won All-Ireland titles in 2003, ‘05 and ’08.
“You will have bad days and good days and it gives you the chance to get the bad days out of your system while giving you a chance to still go and do something.
“Of course, we don’t know what level any team is going to be at because it’s very difficult for any team to be hitting any kind of consistency without a huge amount of training or challenge games under their belts.
“And the closeness of those teams on paper, albeit Louth and Leitrim coming down from Division Three, would always be given a wee nod of being stronger. Everybody’s close enough that I don’t foresee a team going through unbeaten and it could come down to the last game or possibly even score difference.”
Kevin O’Boyle and Colm Duffin are notable absentees from Antrim’s 2020 panel through retirement and work commitments, respectively as McGinley tries to nail down his first starting line-up with only a few weeks of collective preparation.
“It's like a mini Championship of football where every team has a puncher’s chance against each other and we’re also playing in summer weather too which the players are hugely excited about.”
