JOHNNY MCINTOSH: McShane appointment is a fresh start

I WAS in Belfast for the Fleadh last weekend and, I have to say, it was a brilliant experience — surreal even. I really couldn’t recommend it enough. It was like being at a cultural festival in Cork or Galway city centre.

Another thing I’m happy about is the recent appointment of Michael McShane as the new Antrim senior hurling manager.

I was with Mickey for a while with the U20s, and he’s a very talented manager. It’s great to see him take the step up.

It’s the start of a new beginning because we’re at a low ebb. Finishing fourth in the Joe McDonagh Cup was a real backwards step. We lost twice to Down last season, and the two seasons under Davy Fitzgerald were generally pretty negative, with a lot of bad feeling around the county.

Now there should be a bit of optimism with Mickey.

Mickey can come into the job with a bit of a free shot at it. He doesn’t have to achieve massive things in order to progress.

I’ve said this to a lot of people: if Mickey can beat Down in the National League and the Joe McDonagh Cup, that’s going to be a successful season for him, simply because we couldn’t do it last year.

We did terribly in the Joe McDonagh Cup, so I think very small steps would be important.

Mickey doesn’t need to get us to a Leinster final, put it like that. To be honest, he doesn’t even need to win a Joe McDonagh Cup.

Those are good things and those are positives for Mickey. From there, he can start setting positive standards.

He has a bit of a luxury that Davy Fitzgerald maybe didn’t have, in that we can blood some of his new U20s players in league matches because it’s not necessarily win-or-bust.

Davy Fitzgerald came with a reputation that he was looking for success, and that meant it was win-or-bust for Davy. He had to play the best players and pull out all the stops. He was able to get the best players on the pitch in terms of the boys who were available at the start of his tenure.

In the second year, though, a lot of those best players had left the panel.

It causes problems if you’re putting boys onto teams because of reputation and things like that. What Mickey can do is demand work, demand effort and give young players a chance.

We do have talent coming through that will doubtless come onto the squad. He can say, ‘Look, I’m going to try and create a county team not for 2027, not for 2028, but to gradually create a culture and a new set-up in Antrim.’

That can be a positive. We’ve taken a couple of backward steps, so I think Mickey has an opportunity. I also don’t think he’s under massive pressure in terms of time. Everybody really knew Davy was a one- or two-year deal.

Darren Gleeson was very different, his predecessor. He took the team when there was a good age profile, with a lot of players in their prime, and he did really well with them.

But they have lost a lot of players in recent years – Neil McManus, Niall McKenna, Ciaran Clarke and Eoghan Campbell. All super, super players, and we haven’t really gone about replacing them properly.

We’ve got good young players who haven’t really got their chance, and I think that’s what Mickey needs to look to do.

He needs to impose good standards, play a lot of challenge matches and give young fellas the belief that this is an open door.

I think for the past few years, it’s looked a bit like a closed shop. It’s as if the team is settled and we’re not really worried about whether they’re fit in January or February, because they’ll be back for April. That’s very demotivating.

It’s very hard to ask a young fella to train his guts out knowing that the superstar players are going to come back, and Mickey can change that culture.

He can change that dynamic. He can say, ‘No – I’m going to play my young team.’

The big question is: how much worse can it be? It can’t get much worse.

Mickey will obviously want to get success, and any manager does, but I think it’s important for him – and important for Antrim – that he starts to gradually lay a foundation of standards that allows us to be successful.