Northern Switchgear Antrim SFC semi-final
Lámh Dhearg v Portglenone (Saturday, 4pm, Cargin)
THEY might have been caught in the crossfire of the boardroom battle but for the last two weeks, Portglenone have been living in a bomb shelter with the music up full blast.
There’s nothing ideal about being there, but the last two weeks have presented an unlikely form of security and safety to them.
Creggan’s 11th hour decision to withdraw their appeal to Ulster finally set the semi-finals in stone.
There’s no easy way to prepare for a game you’re never sure will happen. No matter what the two teams have done in the last fortnight, no matter how much they’re talked of clear eyes on the Saturday afternoon, the fallout from the Lámh Dhearg – Creggan game will have affected both camps.
You can even look to the fact that as of 3pm on Friday afternoon, no referees had officially been appointed.
Given how much scrutiny teams place officials under now, how the whistlers’ inclinations are studied in as great a detail as an opposition forward, that in itself gives you a clue.
Who it’s affected more and how it’s affected them differently, we’ll only know the answers to later this evening. But for Portglenone, there can only have been solace in a fortnight’s build-up to a semi-final where everyone was talking about something that wasn’t their semi-final hoodoo.
Any game at this stage for Portglenone is as much them against the demons in their own heads as it is a battle with whoever is sharing the field with them.
They have lost five consecutive semi-finals in Antrim.
Psychologically it’s coming up on Loughgiel hurlers’ run of six consecutive final defeats between 2003 and 2008.
In 2006, Loughgiel were eight points up on Cushendall at half-time. They lost by seven.
“Maybe the younger ones – myself included – began to think this is it, we’re going to win this one here, but the whole thing just seemed to fall apart after half-time. It was tough,” said Liam Watson in a 2011 interview.
If Portglenone want to take heart from the tale then they just need to look at its similarities and the outcomes Loughgiel got from persevering.
Just when it looked as though they might never get there, they won one in 2010. One became four on the trot, with four Ulster titles and one incredible All-Ireland attached.
Portglenone’s 2006 moment came two years ago against Aghagallon.
Of the different ways they’ve found to lose their five semi-finals, one somehow less horrifying than the next, the one they’ll never forget is being five points up in stoppage time at the end of normal time and being two up again in stoppage time at the end of extra-time.
It was the second successive thriller they’d lost to the same opposition, the first of which actually saw Portglenone decline the opportunity to go the boardroom route in a dispute over whether a second period of extra-time should have been played.
The first semi-final defeat came at Lámh Dhearg’s hands on the infamous night that then-county chairman Ciaran McCavana stepped in to halt a free-taking competition at the end of the first replay.
It was 10-10 when Paddy Cunningham felt the tap on the shoulder. He left the ball down, everyone went home and when they came back for the second replay, the Lámhs won.
When Dunloy ripped them down the middle in Dunsilly last year, you could almost see the weight of that history sitting on their necks.
There is a form of resilience in keeping on coming back her.
And to get to come into a sixth straight semi-final where nobody has been talking about the thing they all talk about when Portglenone reach a semi-final has been a Godsend.
Having never won a senior championship, they went full-out after a league title last year and won it.
They eased up in the last half-dozen games of this year’s league, more content in themselves. They’ve added former Derry forward Enda Lynn and his ex-Greenlough and London team-mate Kevin Mullan in goals from last year, and have had a lot more of Dermot McAleese.
Lámh Dhearg have been at the door of more titles than just their 2017 success. They took Cargin to a replay in the final two years later and have suffered pretty regular heartbreak of their own in the deep knockout stages.
Ryan Murray is back in situ after his suspension and barring an eight-goal quarter-final thriller that Portglenone snatched late on in 2021, the Red Hands have a good record against the Bannsiders over almost a decade.
Are they distracted or galvanised, drained or energised by the events of the last fortnight?
They have their own mental battle to win.