The championship needs streamlined says Cushendun manager

By Michael McMullan

CUSHENDUN manager Rory McQuillan was full of praise for his side in victory over Lavey last weekend in the Ulster Intermediate Hurling Championship.

The Emmet’s now face Carey Faugh’s in Sunday’s refixed Antrim Intermediate Championship decider. With Carey winning the Ulster Intermediate Championship two years ago, they were not eligible to play in the competition this season.

After this weekend, Cushendun face into an Ulster semi-final against Keady the following week and McQuillan is calling on Antrim to review their championship structures.

Carey and Cushendun both topped their group, hence avoiding the quarter-finals having automatically booked their semi-final spots.

McQuillan feels the Antrim Championship needs to be finished earlier to give their champions more than a week to prepare for the original Ulster date.

“The way we’ve been messed about this week (ahead of the Lavey game), by our own county board and Ulster Council, we didn’t even know this match was going to take place until about Monday night,” McQuillan said.

“I’ll tell you what, we were ready for anything that was thrown at us today (against Lavey). I think anybody watching saw the difference, (we were) the hungrier team out there.”

Cushendun finished the game with 13 players but a defensive masterclass stopped the Derry champions from imposing themselves on the game.

“It says a lot about character, and that’s what our boys showed today, and I can’t fault any of them,” McQuillan said.

“We were in a good position at half-time (leading by four points), we were comfortable. We were in a good place; we were happy enough the way things were going there.

“Our full back line, our half-back line was immense,” McQuillan added. “Our forwards, having to deal with two extra players were immense too, you had Conor McHugh and Sean McKay up there.

“Our midfield, Harry Kilgore and Calum Kilgore. Shane McQuillan along with Donncha Laverty, the two young boys, only 17, they were brilliant when they came on. We couldn’t ask any more of our boys, to be honest.

“If you wanted the answer of what our mentality was going to be like, or what way we were approaching this game, you’ve seen it out there today, what it means to us,” he added.

“We’ve trained hard this year, and we’re not going to be stepping back at this point.”

Cushendun topped their group and came through an epic semi-final with Creggan to book a final spot against Carey.

McQuillan appealed to Antrim fixture planners to streamline the championship to take out any potential long gaps to shorten the competition and help their champions prepare for Ulster.

“You need to close the gap, whoever wins it, not just us,” he said. “It could be Creggan, Carey, whoever the case may be, that they have a chance to prepare for an Ulster quarter-final.

“We have three championship games in three weeks. We’ll deal with the cards we’ve been dealt. We’ll knuckle down, and we’ll try our best to prepare for Carey, which is going to be another battle,” he said before also pointing to the Ulster semi-final the following week.

“There are no easy games at this level, everybody’s just fierce competitive. We just have to take it one step at a time and get ready for next week.”