ANTRIM’S Peter Healy says that he and his team mates are eager to end their long drought in the Ulster Championship.

The county’s last win in the provincial competition came in 2014 when the Saffrons beat Fermangh in the quarter-finals. That long gap is a point of frustration.

“It has been seven years since Antrim won a championship game we are well overdue a win. Hopefully it is this year, or hopefully it is coming.

“Ulster Championship is the most competitive out there. You never know who is going to win it in any year. We can go in to it and give it a rattle.”

Healy, who is 24, is the captain this year, but his experience of the Ulster Championship has not been great.

“As a player it hasn’t been too hot. I played Donegal in Ballybofey and Down. There hasn’t been much hot and a lot of cold.”

However, as a fan he fondy remembers the great season in 2009 when Antrim went on a run to the final.

“2009 is the year that everyone remembers. Antrim had a great team that year.

“The heroes of that team are still the heroes today. We were looking at Paddy Cunningham when he retired and we thought we’d never see him again. He has done brilliantly to get himself into serious shape and come back.

“Those were great days in 2009. You remember Paddy Cunnigham’s wee shimmy and that sort of thing. You see Odhran Eastwood doing that now. Maybe that’s where he got it.”

If Antrim are to get their first win since 2014 then they are going to have to take advantage of the advanced mark, one of the newer developments to the rules.

For Healy, the game of football is in a great place, though it has made his life more difficult.

“If anyone is watching football now they are seeing that blanket defences are a thing of the past and goal chances are rife. It is brilliant for football and brilliant to watch. Any league game you watch is fantastic stuff. I don’t know if the advanced mark has anything to do with that.

“The games we played against Sligo and Louth in particular they were making use of the advanced mark. As a defender, the ball being launched in time after time isn’t always what you want to see. As a defender if you have pushed a forward to the outside which is what you want to do but then he gets a free shot on goal, that’s not what you want.

“But it has changed the game, and if it means more attacking football, and no more 15 men behind the ball then that’s a good thing.

“For ourselves, we are trying to play more attacking football and more free-flowing football and you can see that with some of the performances, the likes of Marc Jordan and Dermot McAleese for example. They have been let off the leash to get forward and get inside. Football is going the right way.”

DEFENSIVE PLAY… Peter Healy says Antrim have developed an attacking style