ANTRIM boss Darren Gleeson has backed his players to block out everything else about All-Ireland final day when they face Kerry in Sunday’s curtain-raiser at Croke Park.
While Waterford and Limerick gear up for their Liam MacCarthy showdown behind the scenes, the Saffrons will be going toe-to-toe with the Kingdom in the Joe McDonagh Cup decider, as they bid to round off a near perfect 2020.
Antrim’s most recent visits to Croke Park haven’t ended well, though, with a controversial 2016 Christy Ring final replay defeat to Meath followed by an 11-point humbling at the hands of Carlow on the same stage 12 months later.
Plenty has changed in the meantime, while the absence of a crowd will contribute to a unique, and fairly odd, environment.
However, former Tipperary goalkeeper Gleeson – no stranger to All-Ireland final day having been between the sticks for the Premier County in 2014 and 2016 – insists the Antrim players will shut out everything except the job at hand.
“The field is the same dimensions as we faced into at Pairc Tailteann [against Meath in their last McDonagh Cup outing] – the only thing that will matter at the end of the game is the scoreline,” said the 39-year-old, who will come up against another former Tipp number one and current Kerry selector Brendan Cummins on the line at Croke Park.
“Occasions are for supporters and families. We have to detach from the occasion, everything leading into it. It’s nice to have a fanfare around it, Antrim needs that as a county, but for the group we just need to get the result.
“For our boys, it’s not going to be ‘I wonder how Gearoid Hegarty is going to hurl today’ – it’ll be solely on what they can do to get Antrim over the line.
“I know it myself, when you’re arriving into big final days… unless your own county is playing in the minor game, you’re detached from it. You walk out and you see another team playing and you think ‘grand’.
“You’re just focused on what you’re there to do.”
And what the Saffrons are there to do is repeat what they have done three times already this year – beat Kerry.
Antrim won by six down in Tralee at the start of March, and had three to spare in the Division 2A final in Tullamore over seven months later.
A mark of the progress made came when Gleeson’s side were convincing victors in the McDonagh Cup a month ago, winning 3-18 to 2-14 after a superb display at Corrigan Park – though Gleeson knows that will count for nothing unless they do the business on Sunday.
“There’s a lot of respect there between the teams,” said the Portroe man.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t have known much about Kerry hurling until I got involved with Antrim, and now I see what they’re about. They’re a really capable side, they’re representing a pocket of hurling there is north Kerry and it means a lot to them.
“Kerry people are used to going to Croke Park on All-Ireland final days and them boys won’t be found wanting in terms of what it will mean to them.
“On the tactical side, everybody will want to play the game on their own footing but finals take on a life of their own sometimes, and it could be something that no-one has planned that might be a key point in the game that might work out for you.”
