By Shaun Casey

MICHAEL Murphy’s retirement U-turn this time last year and the new Gaelic football playing rules were two of the key factors in Tomás McCann’s decision to return to the Antrim fold, says manager Mark Doran.

The Cargin clubman has been away from the inter-county setup for a few years now but has been recalled to the panel by Doran, who takes over from Andy McEntee for the upcoming season.

McCann, now 37 years old, the same age as Murphy when he came back to the Donegal panel, was one of the main men for Cargin in the Antrim Senior Championship campaign as they reached the final where they came up short against Dunloy.

“I watched Dunloy and Cargin play in a group stage game and Tomás right away was a boy that stood out,” Doran explained. “When you standing watching a match, you don’t worry what age a man is, it’s what they’re doing.

“That day, he was very, very good and in the quarter-final and semi-final he was really good too. The biggest thing we said we were going to try and do was to get the best players to represent Antrim.

“No doubt Tomás is one of the best players in Antrim still at this stage. It probably took a wee bit of persuasion to get him on board but the two biggest things that sold it to Tomás was the new rules, I’ve no doubt if it had of been the old game, it would have been a harder sell.

“The fact that Michael Murphy came out of retirement last year for Donegal at 37 and played in an All-Ireland final so age is only a number; that can be from a high number or a young number, but we’re delighted he has committed.”

McCann was certainly surprised to receive the call up but didn’t take too much convincing in the end.

“It was a simply phone call and it probably did take him by surprise, for the first three or four minutes I had to convince him it was me,” laughed Doran.

“He was given a couple of weeks to think about it and then once he got his head around it and what was required, at the end of the day Tomás McCann won’t train the way a 20-year-old will train, and we’ll have to monitor that.

“The biggest thing I think is that Tomás still offers serious value to that Antrim squad and once I was able to explain my plans for Tomás, he was happy enough to come in and the way it was left was that he’d come in until Christmas, and we’ll see how he gets on.”

Dunloy’s Deaglan Smyth also received a county call-up but will miss out through injury, having suffered an ACL tear recently, while John McNabb, John Carron, Paddy McAleer, Pat Shivers, Conor Small and Kevin Small will all be part of the panel.