Doran happy to see the Saffrons putting the team first

By Michael McMullan

THE team is beginning to come first for Antrim insists manager Mark Doran.

After a dozen games in charge, he now has a handle on where they are and the direction they need to go.

With the Tailteann Cup now thickening up, building a collective bond is an important part of what they are about.

The Saffrons take on Wicklow on Saturday in Corrigan Park. It’s an opponent he knows well.

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Doran sees it as 50-50. Extra time? Possibly. He is the person who can read this game best.

He spent a year coaching them under Oisin McConville. This year, when Antrim’s season was bogged down in a disappointing early spell, Wicklow came to Portglenone.

With two league points from eight, it was an important game for Antrim. Their 2-18 to 1-14 win was another step towards taking them out of the doldrums.

Since a hammering to Longford in Round Three of the league, Antrim have won six of the seven games since.

Their loss was to Derry in the championship. It was a collapse after a positive start that was all of their own doing. Sloppy turnovers and getting caught for breaches.

Saturday is their first knock-out game since and Doran paints the picture of Wicklow.

Mark Jackson’s two-pointers. Johnny Carlin is back after a season with Donegal on the way to last year’s All-Ireland final.

They should’ve chinned Dublin in Leinster. By Doran’s calculation, only nine of the team he’ll face on Saturday played in the league defeat to Antrim.

With 69 minutes gone in the final game, Wicklow were on their way to Division Three only to be pipped by Longford on a day when virtually everyone bar Waterford could’ve gained promotion.

Doran doesn’t see Saturday’s encounter decided on one big thing. It will be the 400 or 500 smithereens that add up to a performance.

It’s about who performs the basics well. They always matter.

There is a concern that Wicklow will have the benefit of an extra game after needing the backdoor route since losing to Laois. Antrim took the front door to the last eight,

“The one thing is we’ve probably been sitting idle for three weeks,” Doran said.

“That could be a good thing or wee could be a wee bit rusty, I don’t know but we’ll not know that Saturday.”

They’ve trained hard and they’ll have looked at what Wicklow have to offer. There is a feeling of being ready for road.

“Come two o’clock, everything’s over to the players,” Doran adds. “It’ll be whatever both sets of players do over that 70 minutes will decide who goes to the semi-final.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if it goes to extra time because I do think the teams are very, very even.”

Antrim’s season can be defined in two halves. Before Leitrim when they propped up the other 31 counties from the bottom of Division Four. A win in Carrick on Shannon was the tonic.

The pain in the Antrim players’ faces told Doran they cared. That was the start. Then it was about convincing them if they tweaked certain aspects of their game, change was on its way.

Speaking after their championship defeat to Derry there were two distinct themes. Antrim’s mistakes cost them and that the Tailteann Cup was their level.

They’d pour everything into it and a pulsating extra-time win over Carlow, away from home, turned their season around.

“After 45 minutes we were 11 or 12 up and were playing really, really well,” Doran recalls.

Home and hosed? Not just yet. Carlow hit them for 2-5 in a 13-minute spell that had Antrim experiencing the early signs of that dreaded sinking feeling.

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“I think we went a point down three minutes into injury time,” Doran added.

“We had every excuse to get beat but, to be fair, the boys showed a serious, serious level of resilience and character to go up the field.”

Joe Finnegan’s equaliser gave them another crack at victory and they snapped it up thanks to a late, late Benen Kelly goal.

It was absolute gold.

“We probably got more out of that than we got out of four or five training sessions,” Doran said about that dramatic day in Carlow.

“Going into extra time, you do learn a lot more. I’m a great believer in you win or you learn.

“We actually won that game and we got serious learning out of it. It was serious. When everything was going against certain people, it was very easy to down tools.

“A lot of boys dug in and they got us out of that and that was probably a big, big learning for us.”

One of Antrim’s key men has been Ryan McQuillan who starred earlier in the season as QUB made it all the way to the semi-final of the Sigerson Cup.

His 6-17 for Antrim, in league and championship, has all come from play, taking him second behind their top gun Dominic McEnhill.

In the first rounds of the league, he was a used sub as Antrim fell to two defeats. At the time, he was mixing Sigerson Cup, study and work in Dublin.

“Sometimes you have to do what’s right for the player,” Doran said of cutting the Glenravel man some slack. Short-term pain for long-term gain.

“When I had a conversation with Ryan, it meant such a big deal to him. It was his last year of Sigerson and he was working in Dublin.”

Now Antrim are reaping the benefits of McQuillan totting up the scores on the way to their bid for an extended run in the Tailteann Cup.

“I do think, in the long term, players will respect that,” Doran said.

“Ryan has been going well but there’s a lot of boys doing a lot of good work out the field to set scores up.”

Another element of Antrim’s mantra is having someone step up and lead the charge.

If a Ryan McQuillan or a Pat Shivers is closed down, the focus is on getting someone else to step forward.

Ryan McQuillan has scored 6-17 in league and championship so far in 2026

“That’s something we have tried to bring in this year, next man up,” Doran added.

“It can’t be the same players every time and that’s one of the most pleasing things I would say of the last five or six games.”

Another to step up has been Ronan Boyle who also missed the early part of the season.

His two goals were vital when Antrim were in the Tailteann Cup trenches against Carlow.

Doran was delighted to see ‘Boyler’ get the rewards, away from the player who kicks scores or the defender that snuffs out the star opponent.

“People don’t actually see the work Ronan Boyle does,” Doran said. “It’s just in round that break ball, the work, the cover, the recovery runs and plugging spaces.”

While not getting much limelight – or even wanting it – his workrate was summed up by making the late run to find the net twice in Carlow.

“That’s one thing I would have been at Boyler, I’ve been talking to him about. He had everything but just needed to bring a scoring threat.

“In his last six or seven weeks, he has really worked hard, is getting his reward and hopefully that will continue.”

The one thing Antrim can control on Saturday is their level of work. Even if things are not going well, there has to be a thirst for putting in the hard yards.

“That’s one thing that’s been pleasing over the last two or three months, everybody’s really working for the team,” Doran sums up.

“It’s really that team first motto now. It took a wee while to get that into players.

“If you are playing as a forward, obviously you want to score and sometimes you’re taking a shot and it wasn’t the right sort of shot for the team.

“That’s something we’ve worked on. It’s really team first – is this right for the team and that’s one of the most pleasing things.”