Tailteann Cup semi-final
Antrim 1-13 Laois 3-12
A WEEK can be a long time in football and one of radically shifting emotions. From the tremendous high of Brewster Park to a terrible flat feeling in Croke Park seven days later must’ve been hard to fathom for the Antrim footballers.
A year ago, their Tailteann Cup semi-final defeat to eventual winners Meath was seen as a game that got away – but the same couldn’t be uttered about this last four loss to Laois.
There were no hard-luck stories, no crucial refereeing decisions that went against them. No, justice was duly served in sunny Croke Park on Sunday.
Antrim were simply beaten by the better team.
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Andy McEntee’s men sorely wanted to go at least one step further than last year – and after last week’s smash-and-grab quarter-final win over Fermanagh, hopes were sky high.
But the Laois players had a score to settle with themselves following their annihilation by Down at the same stage last year. Under new management in 2024, Justin McNulty’s side overcame a couple of stress tests to seal their Tailteann Cup final place against Down at Croke Park on Saturday July 13.
Antrim played in patches, but they simply couldn’t sustain their periods of ascendancy for long enough to really put Laois on the back foot.
And yet, the Ulstermen overturned a three-point half-time deficit and skipped to three ahead themselves after midfielder Paddy McAleer ghosted in on the blind side of the Laois defence to side-foot into the net on 45 minutes, following three unanswered points from Patrick McBride, Colm McLarnon and Dominic McEnhill.
But McAleer’s cool goal finish turned out to be the end of Antrim’s purple patch.
Ten minutes later, Kevin Swayne palmed Eoin Buggie’s dangerous diagonal ball into Antrim’s net – a goal that knocked the stuffing out of their opponents - to edge ahead 2-8 to 1-10
In the closing stages, Laois outscored Antrim 1-4 to 0-3 with raiding centre back Brian Byrne raising a second green flag in the 68th minute to add to his first-half major.
“Laois closed off a lot of dangerous avenues,” said McEntee, “they defended well, they got somebody in front of big Ruairi [McCann] and cut out that avenue.
“Having said that, we had numerous chances which we didn’t take or we didn’t take on which I felt we could have, where we over-ran it.
“But you’ve got to give Laois credit. They hung in there and used the ball well, probably a lot better than we did. There were too many turnovers in the first half for my liking, Laois were strong in the tackle, they might have conceded some areas of the pitch, but they didn’t concede the important area.”
Throughout Sunday’s semi-final, Laois just seemed to get into better scoring positions easier than Antrim did.
Even though their wide count started to climb in the opening half, they were still moving well.
Antrim, by contrast, were relying heavily on the stunning accuracy of Patrick McBride from distance, and the hard running of Marc Jordan to break Laois’s defensive lines.
But Antrim needed a few more men in saffron to step up to share the burden.
Colm McLarnon bagged a point in each half and Creggan’s Ruairi McCann tried to drill holes in the Laois defence – but the Antrim attack generally found the going tough.
And when the Leinster men broke into enemy territory, they were still creating a high number of chances and their accuracy improved too.
Their half-forward line did a lot of the damage. Mark Barry, Evan O’Carroll and Kevin Swayne’s movement was clever and purposeful throughout - with the trio scoring a combined 1-6.
The longer the game wore on, the more times the Laois forwards found themselves in one-v-one situations.
Laois never left themselves exposed to the same degree at the other end of the field.
McNulty was keen to point out afterwards that there was “no strategic superiority” when there probably was for his side.
“The players have demonstrated huge hunger and desire,” said the Laois manager.
“Some days these things happen, the break of the ball, and the scores come at the right time.
“The scores did come at the right time for us, but we weren’t getting carried away. We know Antrim have good players and are well coached - but things worked out better for us today, there was no strategic superiority or anything.
“It was one of those days we got the break of the ball at crucial times.”
It’s true the first of Laois’s three majors was slightly fortuitous. Dermot McAleese made a tremendous block to deny a shot from distance, but the ball ricocheted kindly to Eoin Lowry who off-loaded to Byrne who found the Antrim net on 28 minutes.
Up to that point, things were going swimmingly for Antrim: Laois were missing chances, and Antrim were generally taking theirs.
And there was still that hope among the Antrim supporters midway through the second half that it might just be their day when Lowry hit the crossbar and seconds later McAleer found the net at the other end of the field for the Saffrons to go 1-10 to 1-7 in front.
But once Swayne palmed home to grab Laois’s second goal with 15 minutes remaining, McNulty’s men had wrestled control of this semi-final.
Antrim pushed forward and left the back door open which allowed Byrne to bury their Tailteann final hopes towards the end with Laois’s third goal.
“There’s a fair contrast in the dressing-room compared to this weekend and last weekend – but that’s the way it goes,” said McEntee, who has now completed his second year in charge of Antrim.
“We had a lot of injuries to key guys throughout the year but my view on that is it gives a lot of opportunities to other fellas.
“You look at the squad and there are 10 or 12 fellas who weren’t here last year. We’ve exposed a lot more players to this level of football and there’s no doubt a lot of them have made a lot of progress.”
