Johnny McIntosh – Antrim looked understandably fatigued

FROM one angle, Antrim’s disappointing defeat to Offaly came out of the blue a bit.

Offaly are missing key players Ben Conneely, Cillian Kiely and Eoghan Cahill along with Adam Screeney.

Antrim had a very good result against Westmeath, so it seemed like the pieces were in place to back up that victory with another win.

That’s not it panned out. Offaly overwhelmed us in the second half to record a convincing 2-26 to 0-17 victory, leaving many within the county to wonder where exactly we stand at present.

When you look at it through a different lens, it’s probably not such a surprise though. Antrim have had such a tough run of fixtures after a heavy block of training over the winter period so I have sympathy for the players, who are amateurs after all.

They started with an away trip to Dublin – a tough day at the office – then a massive game the following weekend against Westmeath, and I think the travails took their toll against Offaly. They looked like a team that was a bit leggy and a bit tired, and it’s not surprising really. Thankfully they’ve a fortnight’s break to the next game against Waterford, and they really need the weekend off.

The players have trained hard since the start of December right through January into one match after another match after another. They all have to work for a living in between times.

Sometimes I think we contradict ourselves in the GAA. There’s all this talk about player burnout concerns, so they’ve gone ahead and banned collective sessions during the months of September, October and November.

Then a couple of months later, you’re expecting those same players to play six league games in seven weeks and believe me, that’s a hard schedule. I know professional soccer players have a much busier schedule but they go home and rest and don’t have to get up for work the next morning.

I know our athletes are fit but they’re only human and there’s mental fatigue to contend with as well.

The Antrim lads went from the low of the Dublin defeat, picked themselves up for Westmeath and were probably on a high after that, and that can be tiring in itself.

It’s a bit worrying though that we seem to have stood still compared to Offaly. They’ve been integrating their u-20 stars, they’re probably using that success to up the standards of the senior panel and they definitely look a much more polished team than in previous years. We were beating Offaly fairly regularly but they seem to have pushed on.

It’s also difficult for Antrim and Davy Fitzgerald as they can’t afford to work their way into the season. It’s an eternal problem – they have to give it absolutely everything in the league as no disrespect to our colleagues in Ulster, we really don’t want to be playing in Division Two which is effectively the third division.

I don’t mean to be negative, it’s just the reality of the matter. We want to be competing against the very best teams in Ireland and once you drop down a level, you can easily find yourself stuck there.

In terms of the format, it’s two up and two down so it’s a really cut-throat league and we need to get a win out of somewhere in the coming weeks if we’re to stay up.

I just hope supporters are patient, I think the majority of Antrim fans were delighted to see the appointment of Davy Fitz and he has the potential to be a great manager for us.

There’s much more at stake than the senior team and I’m always the one harping on about our underage structures, and to be fair he’s going to be coaching at some of the local schools in the next while.

For me, that work will be as important as the senior stuff as we really need to bring players through. I’m involved with the u-20s this year and thankfully we’ve a strong pool of players but it’s critically important that they’re nurtured properly and brought through to the senior ranks. Thankfully it seems to be going well and we’ve an Ulster U-20 final next month where we’ll hopefully make amends for last season’s defeat to Derry.