On the day that Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton helped Antrim to perhaps their greatest ever win, beating Offaly in the 1989 All-Ireland semi-final, Davy Fitzgerald performed on the undercard.
The young goalkeeper from Sixmilebridge was playing for the Clare minors who also won big that August afternoon 35 years ago, beating Galway.
Fitzgerald maintained a link with the Saffrons after moving into management, claiming that between coaching and cajoling he’s been travelling up north for the guts of 20 years.
Now he has been entrusted with the reins of the Saffrons senior team and McNaughton, one of the many heroes of that 1989 team that reached the All-Ireland final, can’t find fault with the appointment.
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“For us to get a high profile manager like Davy is obviously good, hopefully everybody who wants to hurl for Antrim and who is capable of hurling for Antrim will be energised and get involved,” said McNaughton.
Then comes the but, and it is a big but.
The former All-Star and Antrim manager outlines what he feels the real focus should be on when it comes to Antrim hurling. And it has little to do with the front-of-house county senior team.
“Obviously you need your flagship team going well, of course you do, and the likes of Davy will get a bit of hype going and get people talking,” said the Cushendall man. “We’ve got as high-profile a manager as there is out there. But why can’t we have the whole thing?
“Why can’t we have as much thought going into what’s coming behind the senior team? We’ve a Gaelfast thing going on for 30-odd years and I don’t know how else to say it but it’s been an absolute waste of money and time.”
Seamus McMullan, the Antrim chairman whom Fitzgerald has said won him over with his energetic pitch to replace Darren Gleeson as senior manager, spoke in May about reviving the Gaelfast project, with the aim of increasing participation rates among schoolchildren in Belfast.
According to McMullan, the pandemic stalled the GAA-backed €1.1 million project.
“Stalled? It never got going,” retorted McNaughton. “I can’t be more up front on it than that.”
“I’ve been banging this drum for 30 years, I’m sick of listening to it myself.”
For McNaughton, “a different focus” is what’s needed.
“We did a survey about 10 years ago, myself and Dominic McKinley and under the age of 11, boys only, there were 5,500 that had never held a hurl,” said McNaughton. “There are clubs that haven’t produced a minor team in their lives, there are other clubs haven’t produced a minor team in years. So all of that really needs to be looked at.
“Every now and then you get a green shoot where there’s a group of players come through and there’s a bit of hype and then it all falls to nothing again.
“There’s nothing sustainable, nothing constructive in it
“So Davy will come in and do a good job, no doubt, but it’s not going to get us beyond the real problems that we’re facing. If we’re going to bring Davy in, it needs to be a whole root-and-branch thing because we’re doing the same stuff this last 30 and 40 years and getting the same outcome.”
McMullan, Antrim’s new chairman, has also gone on record about commissioning a “vibrant, robust strategic plan” to take advantage of “the opportunities that are there”.
That long-term focus could lead to changes in the areas that McNaughton has outlined.
“Belfast is, to me, a sleeping giant,” said Sambo. “The clubs are there but it’s just to get them up and going.”
Back at the front of the house, a thriving Antrim senior hurling team couldn’t hurt.
“I have met Davy a few times and I think the GAA needs characters like him,” said McNaughton. “He’s not going to do our senior team any harm. He’s obviously a good coach. If we’re talking just about the senior team then absolutely, Davy is a good appointment for Antrim.
“He’s high profile, he has vast experience and he’ll do Antrim absolutely no harm but as someone who has lived and breathed Antrim hurling for my whole life, it frustrates me when I see what we’re not looking at ... like, are we putting the roof on a house that has no foundations?”
