MARC Jordan is fully behind the concept of the split season – but hopes it evolves to the point where it allows county players to play more league games for their club going forward.
The Antrim leagues were up and running in early March which ruled out county players from the early rounds.
Jordan felt slightly parachuted into the Lamh Dhearg team ahead of their opening club championship joust with Kickham’s Creggan last Sunday, which ended all square.
“For Conor and Ryan [Murray], Decky [Lynch] and myself, the club is very important to us and I would like to have played more league games,” Jordan said.
“We’ve spoken to Ciaran McCavana [county chairman] already because we feel we’re only coming in to play championship games. But I'd definitely be a fan of the split season.”
Lamh Dhearg boss Deaglan Bunting still managed to guide the seniors to a respectable fourth place finish in the top flight without the county contingent for large swathes of the league campaign, and will be buoyed by their brilliant comeback against defending champions Kickham’s Creggan at the weekend having trailed by five after 44 minutes.
“Our club management is pretty good,” Jordan added. “They said when you’re with the county, you’re with the county and if you can make a club session, that’s great. They have been very accommodating with us.”
The Hannahstown men landed a county championship in 2017, the club’s first since 1992, but the feeling was they might have added at least another one.
While they won’t rule themselves out of another title push, Jordan accepts Creggan, Cargin and Portglenone are rightly ahead of Lamh Dhearg in the pecking order.
“The league table doesn’t lie. Over the last four or five seasons we’ve been fifth or sixth. We finished fourth this year.
“You’ve Creggan, Cargin and Portglenone – they’re probably the three main teams and we probably are playing a bit of catch-up but we’re starting to get a few young players in the team, but those teams I mentioned have probably been finishing in the top three."
On Sunday’s dramatic draw in Creggan that will give them a serious boost in confidence for the rest of the group stages, Jordan said: “I think a draw was a fair result because Conor [Murray] missed a good chance in the second half whereas Creggan had good start to the game.”
