Eastwood enjoying freedom with Antrim footballers

ANTRIM forward Odhran Eastwood says the new management have allowed forwards freedom to express themselves.

Antrim have enjoyed two wins from two games but both matches have been close and the Saffrons have had to battle for their results.

Against Louth in round one, they needed to hit the last three scores to earn a 1-15 to 3-8 win. Then in round two Paddy Cunningham’s late score nabbed a 3-13 to 3-12 win over Sligo.

Eastwood scored 1-1 early on in the game and the Naomh Éanna man says that he is enjoying the start, even though they have been leaving the results late.

“The games have been high pressure, but those are the games that I like, those are the type of games are brilliant. When you do win games late on it makes it even better.

“There is more in us. We have made mistakes in both games. We have played well but we can get better. We have showed spurts of it, definitely in the second half against Sligo when we were four points down, we put the shoulder to the wheel.

“Hopefully we can build on what we did on the first two games.”

Enda McGinley is in his first year in charge of Antrim, and he is aided by former Tyrone team mate Stephen O’Neill as well as Saffron legend Sean Kelly.

Eastwood has been impressed by the new boss.

“I wouldn’t have known him before. He has been 100 percent. The lads he has brought in have been brilliant and the training is brilliant. What they have asked us to do has been great and we are all enjoying our football.”

As Eastwood is a forward, working with someone like O’Neill, an All-star-winning attacker, has been very positive.

“They have allowed us to go out and express ourselves. They have given us confidence to do that which I enjoy. They want us to go out and get on the score sheet.”

Antrim have been allocated 300 tickets for this weekends game as fans are allowed to return to games in smaller numbers.

The county board will distribute these evenly among the clubs, similar to how the All-Ireland finals tickets are dispersed.

FREE… Odhran Eastwood is enjoying freedom playing for Antrim