CORRIGAN Park is a weird and wonderful ground. Surrounded by chimney pots and the imperious Black Mountain forever watching over this small, grassy utopia on the Whiterock Road, it’s a ground that has the best acoustics.
Every cry, every guttural roar from behind the wire, every bone-shuddering challenge on the field doesn’t escape; it swirls and lingers around the place as if the exits had been bolted, noise that stays trapped for the duration of the game.
The Antrim hurlers will be hoping to conjure that kind of atmosphere at Corrigan tomorrow afternoon as their nemesis Dublin roll into west Belfast in what could be a season-defining match for the Ulstermen in Division 1B.
Through Gaelfast, hundreds of underage hurlers and footballers will file through the turnstiles to turn up the volume, while traffic is pulsing along on Ticketmaster.
Four years ago, the Dubs were up in Corrigan and spirited away the League points by the narrowest of margins. It was a game that got away from Antrim.
Even in defeat, the day felt like the start of something. In the opening minutes of what was a brilliant encounter, Neil McManus barged into Danny Sutcliffe.
The Dublin forward refused to retreat for an Antrim free, so McManus forcibly pushed his opponent back with a thumping shoulder. It was exactly what the Antrim hurlers needed.
Nothing wrong with a bit of well-placed belligerence on a hurling field.
Antrim needed more players like McManus that day, more acts of defiance, more aggressive notice to the bluebloods from the south that they weren’t going to get anything easy on the Black Mountain's shoulder.
You could never condone Liam Watson’s crude strike on Cork’s Eoin Cadogan in their 2010 All-Ireland quarter-final at Croke Park, but what Antrim had was a player who had an evangelical belief in himself.
Players like McManus and Watson never indulged the inferiority complex that plagued Antrim on the national stage.
On more days than not, they walked the walk just like anyone in Munster - and as good as anything in Munster too.
There have been so many false dawns in Antrim over the years that their hard-bitten followers know not to get ahead of themselves.
Shafts of light have ricocheted around the county over the last couple of seasons under Darren Gleeson, and under trying circumstances.
In an interview with Niall McKenna in today's edition, the Sarsfield's half-forward was still livid with how last Sunday’s narrow defeat to Kilkenny in Nowlan Park ended.
“We threw it away,” he said. “Our own stupid mistakes cost us.”
Even though they still lost their opening NHL game, there has been a decisive shift in mindset in the camp – and for the better too.
There was a time when Antrim teams in the not-too-distant past would have dreaded a trip to Nowlan Park against Kilkenny. Now, they’re embracing them.
McKenna insists the current set-up is the most professional he’s ever been involved in and believes the moral victories that probably pockmarked Antrim’s path more than anything are firmly in their rear view.
Everyone appears to be rowing in the same direction – the county board, the fundraising bodies and buoyant underage squads.
It’s a far-cry from the days when Terence McNaughton and Dominic ‘Woody’ McKinley would be standing in the carpark to see who would turn up for training.
Kevin Ryan, a man who never minded travelling hurling’s ‘B’ roads, gave the job his best shot, always wearing his heart on his sleeve. But, like every other senior hurling manager that went before him, he endured more bad days than good.
The refreshing thing about Ryan’s stewardship was his honesty. In a round robin championship game against Wexford, Antrim were struggling without a defensive sweeper. By the time Ryan rectified things, it was too late.
Wexford had already blown an irreparable hole in Antrim’s prospects. Ryan took full responsibility afterwards. He also never shied away the afternoon when Antrim were relegated out of Division One by Kerry at Parnell Park.
The Waterford man was pushing a boulder up a hill. It’s probably the way it has always been for Antrim.
Gleeson has been involved with the Antrim hurlers, both as a coach and manager, for four years. Without using it as a crutch, the Tipperary man spoke recently about Antrim’s geographical isolation and how it was merely “part of the battle in the war”.
Now in his third year as manager, the Antrim boss has been pushing the same boulder up the same hill, no easy task when you consider COVID has hung over his tenure from the get-go.
They went through 2020 unbeaten, and got results in places where they struggled in the past.
When COVID allowed it, there was consistency in team selection, individuals made serious gains in their performance, they won the Joe McDonagh with a bit to spare and they managed to retain their top flight status last season after taking the scalp of Clare and then pulling out all the stops to draw with Wexford – two memorable days in Corrigan Park.
But then there are the Dubs – a team with the physical profile that regularly conquers Antrim. They pulled Antrim down in last year’s National League with an eight-point win and pushed that margin out to 18 by the time the Leinster Championship came around.
Tomorrow’s clash between the two is crucial on so many levels. Precious league points are at stake while Dublin are a county Antrim are always keen to measure themselves against because they want to emulate what they did in the capital, and that was successfully breaking into hurling’s top tier and staying there.
Dublin have pushed their own boulder up the hill. Antrim are still pushing theirs. Tomorrow they will try to make more gains in the noisy house of Corrigan.
