By Michael McMullan

ANTRIM’S number one focus is getting promoted from Division Four but new manager Mark Doran insists they have “no divine right” to bounce back up again.

The new Saffron boss has experience of the lower divisions from his time with both Clare and Wicklow. Antrim will have to show up every day. That’s how it works.

Indeed, it was Ruairi McCann’s goal that sent the Wicklow team he coached back to Division Four on the last day of the 2024 league season in Corrigan Park.

Antrim have a bye this weekend in the McKenna Cup before making the trip to Owenbeg next week to face Derry in the opening game.

Doran will use their games with Derry and Donegal to get a look at his squad with eyes firmly locked on the visit of Carlow later this month when the league kicks into gear.

“At the end of the day, your target is promotion but just because our target’s promotion, it may not work out but it will be brilliant if it does,” Doran told Gaelic Life.

“We have seven championship games, starting with Carlow and it’s going to be a dogfight.”

He knows what Wicklow have under the bonnet from his time there under Oisín McConville. There will be emotion in the Tipperary camp with the legacy of the late Philly Ryan, their manager.

“You have Leitrim with Stevie Poacher, another fella I know well, so, it is going to be a dogfight, but Antrim have no divine right.

“We’re going to have to turn up in every game. We’ll approach the Carlow game as a championship game; that’s the way we’re looking at it.

“That’s (promotion) our target but if it doesn’t happen, then, look, we’ll just dust ourselves down and reassess where we’re at, but at the minute, that would be the number one target.”

Doran will know exactly what is coming in the upcoming Derry game having managed Sleacht Néill for the last three seasons.

Between club and county management jobs, often doubling up, he has clocked up the miles but he knows nothing else.

The Longstone man has been involved in football since he was the age of four and weeks after hanging up his boots, 29 years later, he stepped into the manager’s role with Castlewellan.

“Once you were probably in the latter years of playing football for the club and maybe even the county, I was probably always thinking that I wanted to stay involved,” he said.

Even during his playing career, he was dipping into coaching teams around the club and it’s something that has always floated his boat.

“It’s something you’re brought up on, football and it’s in your DNA and you just love it,” he said.

“I can’t imagine my life without football in it. I am the sort of boy who just eats, sleeps and drinks it.”

For all the experiences of managing club teams and various coaching roles at county level, this gig is different.

“Your eyes get opened up that before you actually go on the training field, just how much time you actually spend on the phone,” he said of stepping into the world of inter-county management.

“Getting the backroom team together, physios, things like that and then obviously getting in touch with the players, ringing every player.”

It was a clean slate. Players were invited on board, plans were put in place and once his time ended with Sleacht Néill, the batteries were charged before logging fully into project Antrim.

“Thankfully now that’s all out of the road,” he said of the planning process.

“This is an exciting time now; you’ve got the boys back on the pitch and the McKenna Cup is back.”

Doran is happy with what he is seeing in terms of excitement, a bounce and the fresh ideas a new setup will invariably bring.

“So far, they are really enjoying it, from what I hear from the feedback coming back from the players,” he said.

“After Christmas, when the games start, you start picking teams and leaving people out, things change, but so far, it’s very, very positive and long may that continue.”

He places much of the praise at the door of his management team. Michael McCann is someone he instantly contacted to come on board selector and coach.

Former Derry ‘keeper Barry Gillis is on board as goalkeeping coach with Sleacht Néill’s Paul Bradley, who Doran with him at Emmet Park last season, is also on the coaching ticket.

Eamonn McCann is on board to look after the conditioning having also worked with Errigal Ciaran.

“One thing I always look for in a management team is energy,” Doran stressed. “At the end of the day, we can’t go on to pitch and ask players for energy if we don’t bring the energy.

“All them people I’ve got in, they may bring mad, mad energy. When you look at Mick McCann, there’s nobody who knows anything more about Antrim.

“Once I was approached for the job, he was the first man I had made contact with.

“Having worked with Paul (Bradley) last year in Sleacht Néill, Paul’s a very, very good coach.

“Barry Gillis he’s been about in with Magherafelt, he’s been in Dungannon and in with Derry.

“I am really happy with everybody I have so far. It’s all systems go and hopefully we continue with ourselves and the players being happy. If that happens, we’re doing something right.”