McNaughton hails impact of young Saffron stars

LUCIA McNaughton has seen the future. A stalwart of the Antrim camogs who has been there, done that and bought the t-shirt, she is hugely encouraged by the impact already being made by greenhorns like Éobha McAllister, Cliona Griffin and Janey McIntosh.

Division 1A camogie may have ended in relegation, but they sure didn’t go down without a fight. A historic win over Cork was the major highlight, but they more than held their own in their other matches against the traditional heavy hitters.

And they’re favourites to land the big one in the Ulster Senior Championship. They’re bidding to win their third successive title, and their campaign begins with a semi-final clash against Derry this Saturday at Portglenone.

Speaking about the younger brigade coming through the ranks, Loughgiel and Antrim star Lucia McNaughton, who made her senior intercounty debut 13 years ago as a 17-year-old, said: “I suppose over the past two to three years there’s been a huge surge in younger players coming through, which is absolutely brilliant.

“Most of our senior panel is made up of U23s, and we have a good blend of experienced players who have been involved for a number of years, and younger players coming through. That crossover is really important. In some teams, when you lose a lot of experienced players, it can be hard for younger ones to step in, but we’re lucky to have that overlap.

“When I think back to when we were that age, there’s now so much more emphasis on gym work. When players come out of minor, they’re already really well developed through schools and now with the U23 competition, they have a good platform to transition into senior level if they haven’t quite made it yet. Everyone gets on really well, older and younger players together, so it’s a really nice mix.”

Antrim overcame their semi-final opponents Derry in the last two Ulster finals and will be fancied to do the business at the last-four stage this Saturday. Antrim played at a significantly higher level during the league, but Lucia is conscious that Derry could be quietly priming themselves to spring an ambush.

“The Ulster Championship is always very competitive. It doesn’t really matter what happens in the league—everything takes on a new life in Ulster. It’s something every county wants to win, and it can set you up well for the All-Ireland. We’re really looking forward to it, and hopefully the weather is good.

“There’s strong competition between ourselves, Down, and Derry over the last number of years—we’re the three teams who have won the Ulster competition. There have been changes across all teams in recent years but nobody is going to take anything lightly. Derry and Down, like ourselves, will be eager to come out on top and get a bit of a boost heading into the All-Ireland series.”

When you look back at the results, it can seem like a disappointing league. But for us, because we did well, we kept a lot of teams very close and obviously got that win over Cork, which was massive for us. As the league went on, I think we improved in terms of team performances and getting used to playing at senior level.

That team hasn’t played senior together before, so it was obviously very disappointing that we weren’t able to do enough to stay up for next year, because that quickly became one of our goals after the Cork game. But when we reflect on it, we learned a lot, had strong team performances, and there’s also plenty we can continue to improve on.

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