Allianz National Hurling League Division 1B: Offaly v Antrim (Sunday, O’Connor Park, 1.45pm)
EVERY game in this new-look Division 1B will provide a snapshot as to where the Antrim hurlers are at.
Against Dublin, they played like rabbits caught in headlights – seemingly spooked by their hosts’ awesome physicality and their own indecision over the tactical nuances introduced by new boss Davy Fitzgerald.
From seven floors up in the Hogan stand, there were some square pegs in round holes as Antrim’s new management team embarked on a bit of a learning curve of their own.
Antrim fell to a 14-point defeat and mustered just six points from play as Fitzgerald watched from the stands due to a sideline suspension carried over from his final game with Waterford in 2024.
“We weren’t competitive against Dublin,” Fitzgerald acknowledged after watching a much-improved display against Westmeath at Corrigan Park eight days later.
“But if you put Dublin in against the top teams in the division above us, they’ll win a lot of games right now.”
Although they’ve only played one game, it’s hard to see anyone stopping Dublin from winning 1B this season.
A different Antrim team turned up at Corrigan Park last Sunday afternoon – a more relaxed group that produced some brilliant, inventive hurling.
It was a performance which also indicated that Fitzgerald isn’t as ideological as some would suggest.
Against Dublin, they went route one and got nowhere. That was down to Dublin’s aerial strengths as well as Antrim’s own hesitancy.
Against Westmeath, they mixed their game up. Sometimes they went long, other times they ran the ball. Eoghan Campbell was occasionally the team’s plus-one and other times they went man-to-man.
The main takeaway from Corrigan last Sunday, though, was Fitzgerald is not dogmatic.
“The players have licence,” said the Clare man.
“We will play plus-one sometimes and we’ll go another way. I want them to have two different ways of playing.
“Listen, the bottom line is we are in the same category as Westmeath, Laois, Carlow – we might be a fraction better than them, but we need to get a couple of good wins, we need to be winning games to go to the next level. That’s very important.”
Westmeath were perhaps disadvantaged by not getting a League game under their belts before arriving at Corrigan Park.
On paper, it looked a tight contest. When the ball was thrown in, Antrim were comfortable and should really have won by more than nine points but for a series of soft frees awarded to the visitors.
Antrim’s core is strong with bags of experience at this stage.
Ryan Elliott has evolved into one of the best netminders in the country. Paddy Burke and Eoghan Campbell offer Antrim a strong, confident defensive spine and there aren’t many better creative hurlers than Dunloy duo Nigel Elliott and Keelan Molloy.
Niall McKenna looked more at home out the field against Westmeath rather than being placed under house arrest by the Dublin backs on the edge of the square a week earlier.
Loughgiel’s James McNaughton, meanwhile, has been just majestic and is out on his own as top scorer across the two games with 1-24.
And if he gets a smart enough supply of ball into him, there is so much more to come from Conor Johnston of St John’s.
“Against Westmeath there were bits that were good and bits that were bad,” said the Antrim manager.
“You can see certain stuff we’re working on. We’ve got to get better at it… I think you could see our appetite and our work-rate, but we can’t be just doing that in Corrigan.”
Tullamore on Sunday afternoon offers Antrim another opportunity to dispel the notion that they are vulnerable away from the bearpit of Corrigan Park.
Offaly hurling would regard itself to be on a crest of a wave right now with the glory days just around the corner, especially given their All-Ireland U20 success last year.
For most of the last decade, Antrim and Offaly crossed swords many times. Offaly had been on a downward curve for several seasons but there was something era-defining about their Joe McDonagh loss to Antrim in Tullamore in 2019.
Neal Peden managed to squeeze one of the best performances out of Antrim that day while Offaly were in a ramshackle state and ultimately dropped down to Christy Ring the following year.
Joachim Kelly came in as interim boss during the 2019 campaign after Kevin Martin was let go following back-to-back Championship defeats.
Offaly hurling has since rebuilt its reputation finishing All-Ireland minor runner-up in 2022 – losing by a point to Tipperary – and again at U20 level the following year to Cork before upsetting the odds in 2024 by beating Tipp to claim the All-Ireland U20 crown.
Their seniors, meanwhile, claimed the Joe McDonagh title last year and gave Cork a good run for their money in the All-Ireland SHC prelims.
So, 2025 is a year they expect to make more gains.
Six of the 2024 All-Ireland U20 winning team – Dan Bourke, Jamie Mahon, Donal Shirley, Colin Spain, Cathal King and Dan Ravenhill – featured in last week’s 1-24 to 1-15 win over Laois in O’Moore Park with Brian Duignan and Oisin Kelly to the fore.
“I really want everybody to get behind us and have a bit of patience,” said Fitzgerald as he approaches his third competitive game in charge of the Antirm hurlers.
“These lads are absolutely killing themselves. That’s all I want from them. Offaly will be a big test for us. They will be real big test; they’ll fancy themselves to be a tier above us now because of their underage success and they have a bit of an edge on us. We’ll probably be underdogs, but we’ll see how we go.
“We will probably hit another one or two speed bumps, but I think the players know we’re on the right track.”