THEY may have numbered roughly 450 in Corrigan Park on Saturday afternoon, but it felt like “3,000 or 4,000” that roared the Antrim hurlers to Division One safety, says James McNaughton.
Darren Gleeson’s men produced a fantastic second-half display that was laced with guts and skill to grab a draw against fancied Wexford, which transpired to be enough to stay in the top flight next season following Kilkenny’s 10-point win over rock bottom Laois on Sunday.
The two weekend results combined means that next week’s tie between Antrim and Laois is a dead rubber with the latter going forward to play in a relegation play-off with Division 1A basement men Westmeath.
McNaughton had a sensational game in the middle of the field, hitting 0-7, four of them coming from open play. In his last appearance at Corrigan Park, the Loughgiel Shamrocks man was bottled up at centre-forward but coming from a deeper position worked a treat against Wexford.
“It’s better that you can find the wee pockets of space the deeper you lie,” said Saturday’s man-of-the-match.
“It means that I can get on the ball a wee bit more and it is something I would have struggled with is getting possession of the ball, even against Dublin.
“So, I came out and played a wee bit deeper and to find the pockets, get the ball out of defence and carry it forward into the scoring range.”
It was left to his midfield partner Keelan Molloy to grab a late, late equaliser in a game that ebbed and flowed from start to finish.
Undoubtedly the crowd played a huge role in hauling the Saffrons back in contention after conceding two soft first-half goals to the Model County.
"There was what, 500 people in here? Whenever we were clawing it back, it sounded like there was 3,000 or 4,000 people. The roar was brilliant.
“It is absolutely fantastic to have the fans back and definitely it gives you that bit extra bit of a lift whenever you put a point over and you hear that roar as you are getting back into your position to go again and try to win the next ball. So it is brilliant to have the fans back.
“We could have got the win but we are happy enough that we got the point in the end up. We dug deep in the second half and we know we're a second-half team.
“We knew we had it in us to come back and claw our way back from five points deficit at half-time.”
McNaughton heaped praise on manager Darren Gleeson and his backroom team as well as the county’s strength and conditioning trainer Brendan Murphy.
“Darren’s a great manager,” he said. “You can see what he has done. He is very calm, never loses his head. He gets the best out of us and we love playing for him.
“It’s a step up. But we have shown ourselves that we can make that step up. We have the proper foundations in place with our backroom team along with our management to get us up and ready for this level. We have shown we can compete at this level.
“Wexford are big physical men. Brendan [Murphy] has been brilliant. He has come in with us when Darren came in and the work he has put in, you can see the changes, you can feel the changes that his work has done. We know we are well capable of the physical challenge of any team in the country.”
