Bathshack Antrim Senior Hurling Championship: Cuchullain’s Dunloy 2-20 Loughgiel Shamrocks 2-13
AS the Dunloy hurlers danced beneath the sun in Ballycastle yesterday afternoon a young Cuchullain’s fan raced onto the pitch with a smoking green flare, scenting the air as he ran to celebrate with his heroes.
Normally on county final day the fans of the winning team would invade the pitch – but Covid restrictions decreed the back-to-back county champions had the pitch all to themselves.
But there was still a happy mania to the celebrations – and the solitary green flare was a welcome addition to the party.
In what has been a truly memorable championship, yesterday’s one-sided final didn’t scale the heights of the last five action-packed weeks that had enough drama to sustain Antrim hurling folk until next year’s championship.
Since entering the championship arena on August 9, Dunloy proved again that they are the best team in the county.
Their devilish skill and flair has never been up for debate, but what they’ve shown in abundance on consecutive Sundays has been a warrior spirit and never-say-die attitude.
Every stress test that was put before them in this craziest of championships, they passed.
Like all good champions do, they rallied in their nerve-shredding group games against Ballycastle and Rossa when they looked beaten. When they needed to win against St John’s at Corrigan Park, they did in emphatic fashion.
And in a wonderful sequel they quelled the Rossa rebellion by the narrowest of margins in Dunsilly last Sunday before sizing up rivals Loughgiel Shamrocks in yesterday’s decider.
And, in truth, it turned out to be a less stressful day for the Cuchullain’s.
Screened ‘live’ by TG4, Gregory O’Kane’s men never looked like losing their hard-earned crown from the first whistle.
Choosing to face into a strong wind that should have been worth seven or eight points to Loughgiel, Dunloy ended the first half all square [1-7 to 0-10] and never loosened their vice-like grip on proceedings in the second half.
Reporters congregating at pitch-side got a worm’s eye view of Paul ‘Shorty’ Shiels’s boundless talent too.
Dunloy’s midfield metronome never put a foot wrong in the opening half hour. He opened the scoring after three minutes by drilling over a free from distance and thereafter swept up everything in front of his full-back line.
Shiels doesn’t do aimless clearances either. Every pass – short or long – was perfection.
Probably mindful of Dunloy’s blinding pace in attack, Loughgiel decided not to push up on Shiels – and it proved fatal.
“He's a Rolls Royce of a hurler,” O’Kane said of ‘Shorty’.
“I don't know how he came through the game today because he came off against Rossa. I texted him this morning: 'What are you like?' And he said he was good to go. All you can do is play him and let him run the game as he sees fit.”
Loughgiel’s own key men Eddie McCloskey and James McNaughton didn’t have room to move thanks to some excellent man-marking from Aaron Crawford and Conor Kinsella, but the supply line into them was also poor.
While there was method behind everything Dunloy did, their opponents lacked that same fluency.
McCloskey fired a nice point off his left side towards the end of the half while McNaughton was destined to remain scoreless from play in this final.
Veteran attacker Liam Watson sliced a lovely sideline over but Loughgiel’s scores were too sporadic especially having the wind at their backs.
The writing was on the wall for the Shamrocks when the brilliant Kevin Molloy deftly evaded a couple of challenges to raise a green flag in first-half injury-time that edged Dunloy ahead 1-6 to 0-7, and even though points from Donal McKinley and Watson enabled the 2012 All-Ireland champions to end the half all square, Dunloy were in the box seat.
“We won the toss and decided we would go against the wind,” said Dunloy boss Gregory O'Kane. “We wanted to start strong and we have a lot of pace through the lines. It probably suits a team like us to go against the breeze.
“The use of the ball, putting it to hand, and then running it through, it was first class. I would say probably, the first 15 minutes set the tone for us to go on and win it.”
‘Shorty’ remained hugely influential in the second half before county ace Keelan Molloy took flight, running onto several balls and finding his range and Conal ‘Coby’ Cunning never missed much from placed balls.
Kevin Molloy would blast through the Loughgiel defence again in 55th minute to put the defending champions 2-17 to 0-13 in front – but it was the insatiable work-rate of their forwards that completely unnerved the Loughgiel defence in the second half.
Although Liam Watson powered a free through a ruck of Dunloy defenders to ripple the Dunloy net and substitute Benny McCarry also fired home in stoppage-time, Loughgiel’s two majors were strictly consolations.
Keelan Molloy and Eoin O’Neill hit exhibitions points to ram home Dunloy’s superiority with the Loughgiel management team probably realising long before the final whistle that they needed a miracle to deny their rivals a third title in four years.
It’s a crying shame, too, that Dunloy won’t get the chance to right the wrongs of last year’s painful Ulster final defeat to Slaughtneil as the GAA decided not to proceed with the provincials or All-Irelands due to Covid.
“I think the GAA dropped the ball there,” O’Kane commented.
“There is so much focus and goodwill in the club game. So much exuberance coming out of clubs, all over Ireland. I thought they should have played it to a conclusion, but we are delighted with this title.”
And for those eagle-eyed supporters who noticed the Volunteer Cup was not in attendance yesterday, it has been replaced by the new Fr Fitzpatrick Cup as the ageing Volunteer Cup has been retired – a proposal tabled by Dunloy – and will be “pride of place” in the new Casement Park, said an Antrim official.
Cuchullain’s Dunloy: R Elliott; P Duffin, A Crawford, C Kinsella; R Molloy, C McKinley, R McGarry; P Shiels (0-1 free), Kevin Molloy (2-2); G McTaggart, Keelan Molloy (0-5), N McKeague; E O’Neill (0-2), C Cunning (0-8, 0-7 frees), S Elliott (0-2) Subs: E Smyth for N McKeague (52), C McMahon for G McTaggart (56), K McKeague for A Crawford (63)
Loughgiel Shamrocks: C O’Connell; T Coyle, N McGarry, S Dobbin; T McCloskey, D Mullan, Declan McCloskey; D McKinley (0-3), Daniel McCloskey; J McNaughton (0-4 frees), C McKendry, E McCloskey (0-1); S McGrath (0-1, L Watson (1-3, 1-0 free, 0-1 sideline), S Casey (0-1) Subs: B McCarry (1-0) for C McKendry (40), R McKee for S Casey (40), O McFadden for T McCloskey (55)
Referee: D McKeown
