IF you were asked to pick an act that defines courage on a hurling field, you wouldn’t be short of options.
There were absolutely no hiding places in Ballycastle on Sunday. There was, as Eoghan Campbell puts it, “no fancy hurling.”
He says things as they are. That they pride themselves on being dogs of war. That it took them time to build a squad that could match Dunloy for depth. And that the game should never have gone ahead.
“If I was in Dunloy’s changing room, I wouldn’t be happy that game was played. I’m happy we won but if we’d lost, I wouldn’t have been happy that game was played. I think the decision should have been made not to play it, to be honest.”
There were umpteen acts of physical bravery on both sides.
But what really sets any sports person apart is when you’re faced with a game like this was, to have the courage to go and get the ball and make things happen.
Sometimes it works out, others it doesn’t.
When Cushendall lost to O’Loughlin Gaels in December last, they kept hammering at the door. With 20 seconds of stoppage time left, there was no-one on earth they’d have rather had the ball with a chance to equalise than Neil McManus.
But in the minutes before it, they’d created other chances.
In the immediate afterglow of securing back-to-back county titles, Campbell’s reference point is the dying minutes of that sickening defeat to the Kilkenny kingpins.
From Ed McQuillan found the Dunloy net until the end of Sunday’s Antrim hurling final, Cushendall took nine shots.
Neil McManus took three of them. Eoghan Campbell had two, Paddy McGill and Fergus McCambridge one each. Six of the nine were scored.
They had the courage to take it on again.
“I think a missed opportunity last year,” said Campbell.
“We obviously had a great start against O’Loughlin Gaels and we probably had a bit of mismanagement probably in the game last year [by the players].
“You can say when you get to that stage and you get beat by two or three points, it’s a missed opportunity.
“I think five of the last scores we missed, me, Pad [Paddy Burke] and Neil missed them all – the people you want on the ball at the death, and we missed it.
“I’d probably say the three boys don’t take it personally. I know if me, Neil and Pad were going there and hit five wides again, we’d still take the sixth shot. We’re not scared to take it.
“You miss it, you miss it, you go for the next ball.
“That’s probably the mentality that we’ve had and we try and build into the team – lads, you’re gonna make mistakes but win the next ball.
“It definitely helps with me, Pad and Neil, the county lads, that filtering down. Ronan [McAteer] and Fred [McCurry] are in with the county now and you can see the stuff they’re coming back with, it’s filtering down through the club.
“That’s all you need every year is two or three minors coming up to sustain it. I think that’s what we’re good at and that’s why we have stayed around the top for the last five or six years.”
He’s loathe to use the word ‘transition’ but there was a spell during Dunloy’s four-in-a-row between 2019 and 2022 that the Ruairi Ógs had to be patient.
A few of the old stagers were ready to move off but the likes of goalscorer McQuillan, young Joseph McLaughlin, Scott Walsh, Ronan McAteer just needed that wee bit of time to harden.
That brings Campbell back to courage, only this time of the physical kind.
It’s hard to be a big man in championship hurling until your shoulders round. That just takes time. But it is what they demand.
“It’s what we pride ourselves on. We do have fantastic hurlers but any time we go out in a county final, it’s a battle we want to bring.
“Any time we went out, we do bring it and it’s something we’ll be looking for going on down the line.
“Boys coming up, the example is set – if you want to be on the Cushendall senior team, you have to be battle hardened.
“I don’t want to say there were transition years because there was me, Pad, Neil and the older ones, and a few younger ones on the county panel, but it was throwing them in and getting them senior hurling.
“One thing we’re not afraid to do is throw young boys in and get them hurling. Last day, young Charlie McAuley came in to mark Conor Johnston and did a fantastic job. Scott’s brother Stephen came on, he’s a bit older, but solid.
“We were building a panel and over the last year it’s come. Today, we took Paddy McGill on, two points. We took Del [Alex Delargy] on. The depth of the squad’s there and we’ve built that.
“Dunloy have built that over the last three or four years, you’ve seen subs come on for them and make a massive difference, and that’s what wins championships is the bench.”
The 30-year-old, holder of five county medals now, makes no bones of his feeling that the game shouldn’t have gone ahead. County finals dropped like flies all weekend but Antrim decided to go ahead with theirs.
“I was very, very surprised the match went ahead, honestly. Standing out there with Keelan [Molloy] and Gabby [McTaggart] at a stage, it was absolute… [Cushendall goalkeeper] McAl [Conor McAllister] hit Ryan Elliott in the chest with a ball at a stage,” said Campbell, referencing the puckout that flew a full 140 yards and almost ended up in the Dunloy net.
If the Ulster Póc Fada champion’s puckout had gone into the net and the footage had emerged, a nationwide debate would have blown up around the decision to play.
But play on they did, and both teams faced the same. Dunloy asked questions, legitimately so, but made no complaint about losing in it.
Cushendall move on. They’ll take a few days around the town, settle up towards the end of the week and ease back in to three weeks’ preparation for an Ulster semi-final.
Everyone expects that it will be Slaughtneil rather than Banagher in that tie, a renewal of the rivalry that first sparked the reawakening of the provincial series when they met in a few unforgettable ties in 2014 and 2015.
Cushendall got the better of the Derry champions in last year’s Ulster final.
Campbell has stayed going pretty much ever since and admits that at some point he’ll have to look about taking a break. That’s a conversation to be had with Davy Fitz whenever Cushendall are finished up for the year.
Whether that’s in 2024 or early 2025 remains to be seen.