Bathshack Antrim SHC final: Cushendall 1-16 Dunloy 2-12
FROM early in the week, Cushendall and Dunloy both stepped on to a war footing.
Storm Ashley was due to arrive in Ballycastle with precision timing. 2pm, Sunday, says the weather app.
There’s a stage of the week where they maybe want it called off but there comes a time when they don’t any more. The hurlers in Derry, the footballers in Armagh and Tyrone were all over the threshold, sitting just hours before the game when they got their postponement news.
Cushendall and Dunloy had figured when Antrim didn’t move last night, they wouldn’t move at all, and from then on, they knew it would be a war.
It was an afternoon that offered very little evidence of the quality of Antrim hurling for the watching Davy Fitz, who took time pre-match to have a few consoling words with Dunloy’s cruciate victim Conal Cunning.
His absence was felt in the second half, another set of legs that could have carried up to the Cushendall line, broken a tackle, won a free, hit a score. They were in counter-punching mode for 30 minutes, the same as the Ruairi Ogs had been in the first period.
The wind was insane. There was no danger to spectators with it, everything felt safe, but it didn’t do the hurling any good.
When you have two goalkeepers of the quality of Ryan Elliott and Conor McAllister who cannot for the life of them get a puckout beyond the 45, there’s only so much you can do.
And yet even on its worst day, there was so much to admire. The man-to-man stuff that underpins everything hurling has. It must pray that never gets lost.
Neither team had any interest in getting sucked too deep. They both kept men up against the wind, tried to carry a threat.
In the first half, Cushendall were able to pepper Joseph McLaughlin with enough ball that he could get his teeth into a battle with Phelim Duffin.
But the Dunloy man was aggressive and brave and was winning the battle until he took his eye off the ball for just too long, got into a tangle with McLaughlin as a ball hung short and gave the referee the chance to give a penalty and a booking.
Neil McManus stepped up to the penalty but saw his shot brilliantly tipped around the post by Ryan Elliott.
That all happened two minutes before half-time with Dunloy leading by 1-8 to 0-4. The Cuchullains just hadn’t done enough, getting their first lead after 14 minutes at 0-4 to 0-3. They’d had the wind but couldn’t get their settings right, missing 15 shots in the first half.
Most of them were from Hail Mary positions, but it was an urgency to use the elements that affected Cushendall pretty much the same way in the second period.
Cushendall had taken such sting out of the opening quarter. The first scoreable free they got, Neil McManus took a good moment to tie his laces before pointing. It seemed insignificant but with every second that ticked by and Dunloy couldn’t create daylight, it fostered edginess.
That settled when moments after a brilliant Oran Quinn tackle to dispossess Ed McQuillan at one end, the clearance dropped right in behind for Eoin O’Neill to race in and fire to the net. 19 minutes in, Dunloy were 1-5 to 0-4 up.
But they were getting very little joy inside. O’Neill finished with 1-1, Anton McGrath and Nigel Elliott were scoreless, as was Nicky McKeague when he swapped in with Elliott after half-time.
The Burke brothers and Liam Gillan, whose brilliant full-length block from Keelan Molloy three minutes from time was a match-winning moment, had it fairly well wrapped up.
Dunloy’s threat came from deeper. In Seaan Elliott they had the game’s best player. The amount of ball he carried into the wind, dragging them up out of defence, supported best by Keelan Molloy, they kept Dunloy alive.
But overall, as a unit, Cushendall were more consistent across the park.
They used their physicality to step right up on the Dunloy puckout after half-time. Ryan Elliott was giving it all he had and the ball would still only travel 50 metres, with the McCambridges and McManus and the excellent Ruairi McCollam penning the green and gold shirts back.
The tide turned fairly quickly. There was a moment when Ryan McGarry and Eoin McFerran made consecutive blocks to deny scores but the ball still fell back for Fergus McCambridge to point at the third attempt. That was 1-5 to 0-8 after 40 minutes.
It was already a siege but every so often Dunloy would break the high Cushendall line, get in behind and remind everyone they weren’t gone yet.
The big chance in that spell fell to Anton McGrath, who thought about the pass before the shot from 15 yards was close to McAllister, who clawed it away.
On the three-quarter mark, a cute line ball from Eoghan Campbell to Alex Delargy, the cross for Ed McQuillan racing through to fire past Elliott. Cushendall were ahead now and there were still 15 minutes to go where they had the wind.
It became even more a dogfight from there.
Nigel Elliott bustled down the middle and whatever complaints Dunloy had about the penalty they’d conceded in the first half were wiped out by getting a similar one of their own. Seaan stepped up, rattled the net, 2-8 to 1-10, Dunloy in front again.
Cushendall hit the next three, penned them back in. It looks over again, then Eoin O’Neill pops up to point. Dunloy just found ways to stay on their feet knowing that they had the potential to meet the ‘Dall chin with the uppercut.
O’Neill was almost in but spilled the ball. Molloy breaks through but Gillan throws himself and blocks it away.
In protection mode, Cushendall retreat and invite the pressure on. The three-point gap becomes two but Dunloy are searching goals. Paul Shiels’ first free flies too high. He gets a second go, still 25m from goal, but he does the same again, and falls on his back, knowing that was it.
Looking down on his people fifteen minutes later with the cup in his hand, Neil McManus talks of how Dunloy raised hurling to a level that they had set about meeting.
Cushendall can feel they’ve met them.
Win once, you get to call yourself champions.
Win twice, you become the new standard.
MATCH STATS
Cushendall: C McAllister (0-1 free); P Burke, L Gillan, M Burke; S Walsh (0-1), E Campbell (0-1), R McCollum; F McCurry, R McCambridge (0-1); R McAteer (0-1), N McManus (0-7, 0-5 frees, 0-2 65s), F McCambridge (0-1); E McQuillan (1-0), S McAfee, J McLaughlin (0-2)
Subs: P McGill (0-1) for McAfee (39), A Delargy for R McCambridge (53), C Neeson for E McQuillan (57)
Dunloy: R Elliott; P Duffin, R McGarry, O Quinn; E McFerran, P Shiels (0-3, 0-2 frees), Kevin Molloy; T McFerran, S Elliott (1-4, 1-0pen, 0-2 frees, 0-2 65s); N McKeague, A McGarry (0-1), K Molloy (0-3); E O’Neill (1-1), A McGrath, N Elliott
Subs: C McMahon for McGrath (43), G McTaggart for McGarry (52), P Martin for T McFerran (56)
Referee: C McCloskey (Loughgiel)