Arthur: Keady will have to up the ante

KEADY will have to up their performance levels if they want to overcome Cushendun and compete in the Ulster Intermediate Hurling final, says manager Niall Arthur.

Keady, who last competed in the provincial competition back in 2018, when they reached the final, were much too strong for Newry Shamrocks the last day out, winning by 19-points.

But Arthur was concerned with aspects of their performance and feels they will have to up the ante this weekend as they come up against the recently crowned Antrim champions.

“If we play like we played for the majority of the Newry game, we’ll be well beaten this weekend, there’s no ifs or buts about that,” said the Monaghan inter-county hurler.

“It wasn’t our best performance, far from it. We just felt that we were very, very flat and I don’t know why that was, maybe it was the unknown factor.

“We didn’t know a whole pile about Newry Shamrocks; we didn’t have much information on them. Even in the warmup, I was trying to look down and see what kind of played they had.

“It took us a while to settle into the task. The second half was much better, but we know that we’re rank outsiders this weekend and if we play like we did against Newry Shamrocks, we’ll be nowhere near Cushendun.”

The Antrim men defeated Derry representatives Lavey in the Ulster quarter-final two weeks ago with five to spare before winning their county title against Carey Faughs last Sunday afternoon, 3-25 to 3-21.

Arthur, a Clare native that has been involved with Keady over the past three seasons, got to witness this week’s opposition at Ballycastle last Sunday.

“It’s tough for them and I happened to be watching it,” Arthur added. “It was a really helter skelter game of hurling, a really good second half and extra time.

“The standard was very good and there were some excellent hurlers on show. We saw them last week and that was really it, we don’t know a lot about them.

“It’s kind of a shot in the dark and we’ll just prepare as best we can ourselves, try to get our own injuries fixed up and get as many bodies on the field as close to 100% as we can and try to get the best out of ourselves and see where that takes us.”

Keady won their first county title in eight years this season, beating kingpins Middletown in the final. The footballers also reached the Intermediate Championship showpiece but fell at the final hurdle.

“It’s been a difficult season because an awful lot of them are dual players, so it’s been a balancing act most of the time,” he added.

“There was one stage during the year they played 13 or 14 games across the month of June and into July, so it has been a balancing act more than anything else.

“We’ve been fortunate injury wise; we have a couple of injuries going into this weekend but that is to be expected at this time of the year.”