CONOR McCann has vowed the Antrim hurlers will do all they can to preserve their Division One status, despite dropping into a relegation play-off following their narrow loss to Laois on Sunday.
The Ulstermen will face the bottom team in Division 1A – which is a straight shoot-out between All-Ireland champions Limerick and Offaly who face-off at the Gaelic Grounds in 12 days’ time.
Antrim’s final Division 1B game against Tipperary in Thurles on the same day has been reduced to a “challenge game” after Laois won Sunday’s clash, with all eyes firmly fixed on the relegation showdown on March 26.
Darren Gleeson’s men saved their worst performance of his tenure until Sunday’s crucial trip to Portlaoise, with McCann saying it was “a tough one to take” but that their fate was “still in our own hands”.
Before Sunday’s morale-sapping one-point defeat to the O’Moore men, Antrim had earned rave reviews against Kilkenny, Dublin and Waterford in 1B, even though they lost them by narrow margins.
“The League format is a ruthless set-up,” McCann said, who was introduced as a second-half substitute at the weekend.
“We’ve definitely had our chances in games and the Waterford game in particular where we had a chance to get a point. We had our chances against Laois on Sunday.
“That killer instinct just hasn’t been there while we’ve felt it coming from the teams we’ve played. You can’t question the players and how hard they’ve been working. The group that’s there is so driven to try and bring Antrim forward and keep the county in Division One and play at the highest level.
“It is tough because there has been so much time and effort put into it. But the League doesn’t really lie. We’ve had our chances and we’ve no complaints as players. You’ll get your two points if you deserve them. Last season, we did deserve points but we didn’t take our chances this year.”
Antrim were trailing by six points at half-time but drew level through a Neil McManus goal in the 62nd minute and the visitors edged ahead. 1-19 to 1-18, when Paddy Burke fired over in the 68th minute. But they were pipped to the post in stoppage-time by two brilliant scores from PJ Scully (free) and ‘Cha’ Dwyer.
“Our first half performance was pretty poor,” McCann acknowledged.
“In the second half we started well. We hit three on the bounce and it stayed around that one or two-point margin throughout the half.
“But Laois were able to get vital scores and were hitting frees and sidelines over from all sorts of angles. That’s the disappointing thing because the game was there to be won and we were leading going into added time, we had a couple of chances to extend our lead. But full credit to Laois, they’re a good team. Maybe they were holding out a bit for that game more so than us, you never know.”
Previously, Laois had lost heavily to Waterford and Kilkenny but saved their best display of the season for the visit of Antrim.
McCann has endured an injury-ravaged year to date. Having been an integral member of the Kickhams Creggan side that won their first senior football championship since 1954, the dual player had been struggling with a hip and groin problem and only made his first NHL appearance of the campaign as a second half substitute against Waterford.
Both McCann and James McNaughton were introduced after half-time against Laois which gave Antrim some badly needed attacking impetus.
“It was disappointing… We were going as hard as we could to get that result against Laois. The next couple of weeks will be about getting prepared now for the relegation play-off, with Tipperary before that. There is a really strong panel there but it’ll take a couple of days to get ourselves reset again. We’ll address the mistakes we made against Laois or the things that could do better.
“It’s so important for the group and the age profile too. Even just the make-up of all the different clubs involved in the squad, I think is so important to be playing against that kind of opposition.
"You could see up in Corrigan Park how much it meant to the supporters. For us as a team we have that ambition to drive hurling on in Antrim. You have to be playing your hurling week in, week out against that group of teams. We’ve been working as hard as we can over the last three or four seasons to maintain that. It’s still in our hands – that’s the important thing and hopefully we can get some sort of momentum back again.”
