On Sunday Antrim open their home league campaign with the visit of All-Ireland semi-finalists Limerick. A week ago, Kevin Ryan's team defied most predictions to come within a point of Wexford in Wexford Park and left the south-east having come close to a perfect start to the season.
It was the latest straw in the wind suggesting the county’s fortunes might be picking up.
The same weekend Antrim club O’Donovan Rossa won the All-Ireland club intermediate title, a significant step for a club that once contested a senior final. Last year Creggan Kickhams won the junior All-Ireland and in 2012, Loughgiel won the senior title for the second time.
At underage the county was in another All-Ireland final, reaching the 2013 under-21 decider for the first time but losing to the exceptional Clare team, which went on to record three-in-a-row.
One man who has gained a significant overview of Antrim hurling over the past 30 years is Dominic McKinley. A member of the first Loughgiel side to win the All-Ireland in 1983, he also hurled with the county when they reached the 1989 All-Ireland final for the first time since 1943 before going down against Tipperary.
He has had two stints managing the county team, most recently in a joint capacity with former team-mate Terence McNaughton and is currently Antrim’s hurling development officer. He sees steady improvement in the past few years.
“There’s a lot of good work going on with development squads, which have really come on in the past four years. There have been ideas like the combined colleges team, which has really helped in creating a pathway for hurling. For players out of minor the extra six months (colleges age limit is 18½) is a great opportunity to keep young players involved at a good level.
Become better
“I think we’ve become better at creating links between young players and county teams. As players come through the system, we’re able to talk to minor managers and
Kevin Ryan
at senior and tell them who the skilled hurlers are and who has a good attitude.
“It’s coming along slowly but players coming up now have a couple of years conditioning work done before Kevin Ryan and the seniors take a look at them.”
Ryan, from Waterford, is a former Carlow manager and took over in Antrim in 2012.
A year later he was also in charge of the under-21s when they defeated Wexford in the All-Ireland semi-final.
McKinlay believes that all the recent achievements are important in convincing young players that it’s worth their while committing to the game and he says that the popularity of hurling is steadily growing.
“We’ve spread our wings a bit. For instance we used have 20 under-14s but there’s 40 there now because we’ve been trying to improve the numbers.
Great lift
“O’Donovan Rossa’s All-Ireland was a great lift, especially as they’re in Belfast. Then we’d Creggan winning last year (junior All-Ireland) and Loughgiel three years ago. When the county was going well the club scene was really strong but over the years since it dropped back badly. Now you’ve got good competition again.”
He doesn't think it urgent that Antrim get out of Division One B – the division has featured the last two Munster champions, Cork and Limerick in the same season – but he is concerned that the county's place in this division shouldn't be lost in the other direction.
“I think the focus has to be on Division One B. You’ve teams there like Limerick, Waterford and Wexford and they’re not bad teams. The bottom line for us is to stay in the division. If we dropped it would be a disaster.”
Since 2009 Antrim has been included in the Leinster championship and McKinley says this has been a massively positive development.
“There’s no doubt about it. It’s been a great benefit our combined colleges have been able to compete with the Leinster Colleges and out development squads have been involved in blitzes and the minors in the Leinster league.”
But he also strongly believes participating needs to harden into competing.
“We have to work at setting targets in the senior championship. It’s not enough just to get a run-out in Leinster; we need to aim for something substantial. If we had a half-decent draw and were able to get on a wee roll, you’d never know.”
