Doran left to rue turnovers that fueled Derry pulling clear

By Michael McMullan

ANTRIM manager Mark Doran was left to rue the scores his side gave away from turnovers in Saturday’s Ulster Championship defeat at the hands of Derry.

The Saffrons went into the game as rank outsiders but a goal from Niall Burns shot them into a 1-1 to 0-2 lead after 11 minutes.

The sides were level twice before a Niall Loughlin point shot Derry ahead, 0-6 to 1-2 with a goal from Lachlan Murray putting the Oakleafers on their way to a 1-11 to 1-4 interval lead.

“After 20 or 25 minutes, we were really happy,” was Doran’s first assessment of their performance.

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“We did a serious work on our own kick-outs and our press, it probably didn’t look that way in the second half, but in the first half we felt everything we were working on was coming off.

“The big disappointment was, they scored 1-11 [in the first-half] and 1-5 was from turnovers,” he added.

At half-time, while Doran tried to paint the most positive picture to his side, there was the awareness of the uphill challenge ahead.

“We knew coming here we had to be absolutely perfect, and to go and give 1-5 from turnovers… we’d done a lot of work on staying out of Derry’s trap,” he added.

“In the second half, when Derry do get a run on you, they got a grip of our kick-outs and it’s very hard to shift that.

“In the new game, once you lose momentum, it’s massive. Then we had the (Ronan Boyle) black card and you’re going 11 v 10. Against a team like Derry, it’s criminal – it’s so taxing on the body.”

Next tup

Antrim will have to dust themselves down and prepare for the Tailteann Cup when it comes down the tracks later in the summer.

There is the realism of a team in division Two taking on a team in Division Two on Saturday, with Doran deeming Derry are one of the top five sides in the country.

“Make no mistake, the boys in there [Antrim dressing room], that’s the level they want to go to,” he said, referring to getting towards Division Two football.

“We’ve only one competition left, and probably that is more a realistic level. It’s a competition we’re going to go after with everything. We’ll give the boys a few days off, we’ll take the learnings from that there.

“The scoreboard doesn’t look good on us and I hate losing. I know everybody else had us written off but, in the camp, we were pretty confident if we could execute everything, we’d be in with a fighting chance the last 10 or 12 minutes.”