By Niall Gartland

THIS time last year, a seismic shock was on the cards as Antrim played host to All-Ireland champions Armagh at Corrigan Park in the first round of the Ulster Championship.

The Saffrons led at the end of a frantic first half though it all went a bit Pete Tong after the break. Kieran McGeeney’s side pulled away to record a 1-34 to 1-23 victory, leaving the home side with a certain amount of ‘what ifs.’

It’s a similar enough backdrop to this year’s provincial opener against Derry at Find Insurance Celtic Park on Saturday, April 18.

The Oakleafers are raging-hot favourites but by no means is Antrim captain Eoghan McCabe racked with despondency ahead of the game. If they string together a full 70-minute performance, then you never quite know how it might all pan out.

“Realistically we’re the lowest-ranked team in Ulster, so it’s always going to be a free hit for us.

“The big message all year is how good we can be for 70 minutes. I suppose there’s been a fair bit of talk about the Armagh game last year. You don’t want moral victories but we put it up to them for 35, 40 minutes, which was great, but we dropped off a cliff after that.

“So we want to see if we can sustain that for the full 70 against Derry. That’s been a key message for us all year – can we produce consistent performances and see where it takes us.”

The early stages of the league weren’t exactly plain-sailing under new manager Mark Doran, but they head into the championship in decent form having picked up four wins on the trot in the second half of their Division Four campaign.

McCabe, a St Gall’s clubman, said: “The league was a bit of a mixed bag for us. We played some really good stuff, but some really poor stuff as well.

“We have picked up a bit of momentum with four wins in a row but we started off very poorly, losing our first three matches.”

Asked if they were reaching for the emergency button after their string of defeats, he added: “Not quite. I think the biggest feeling within the camp was that there was so much stuff that was going really well in training but wasn’t transferring into games. It was a case of trusting the process and if we did that, it was going to come right eventually. I suppose we did turn things round to an extent.”

Barring a miracle run to the Ulster Championship final, Antrim will once again ply their trade in the Tailteann Cup. It’s a competition they’d dearly love to win, their best showings in the competition with semi-final appearances in 2023 and 2024. McCabe isn’t looking too far beyond the present though.

“You don’t really think that far ahead. For us the league is always massive. We really want to be going up the divisions, playing against better opponents and developing the team. I think that’s the only way we’re going to develop as a county.

“Then when you get to the Ulster Championship, you really look forward to it. It’s always a good test for us to see how good we can be, having a crack at some of the top teams in the country – and Derry are one of those teams so we’re really looking forward to that.

“After that we’ll regroup, and depending on how the result goes, we’ll go after the Tailteann Cup and we’ll do our best to try and win it. The big incentive is getting into Croke Park, but really, whatever competition you head into, you want to do your best to try and win it.”

McCabe missed out on St Gall’s glory years – a remarkable prolonged spell where they won 13 Antrim Senior Championship titles in 14 years between 2001 and 2014 with an All-Ireland title thrown into the bargain. His big influence growing up was his father Carl, a Tyrone native.

“Growing up he was the main influence on the footballing side of things. He had the ball in my hands before I could walk. I was down to St Gall’s as soon as I could, and I spent weekends in Omagh and places like that watching Carl’s matches. I’ve always been around football, I’ve always been football-mad.”