Wallace: Time for Saffrons to shine

Eight years ago, the then Antrim boss, Dinny Cahill, made quite a stir ahead of their All-Ireland SHC quarter-final against Cork.

“We are going to win the All-Ireland this year,” claimed the Tipperary native.

“We can win the All-Ireland. After getting over this game, anything can happen…”

Such statements are fine as a rallying cry to his own team. The problem was that he didn’t stop there. He also went on to lambaste Cork, and one man in particular: “Cork have to have a problem when they recall Brian Corcoran — they have to have problems. They have a dreadful inside forward line all season, couldn’t get the scores, they had to recall a man who finished playing. Well, he will be finished after Sunday.”

Cork walloped them (2-26 to 0-10) and Corcoran rubbed salt in the wound by scoring the two goals as Cork went on to win the All-Ireland.

This week in Croke Park, at the launch of the Allianz Hurling League 2012 campaign, another outside manager (a Cork man, ironically) again made big claims for Antrim hurling but with this critical difference — Jerry Wallace then threw down the gauntlet to his own team.

“In the top 12 teams at the moment Antrim are as well placed as anyone in the hunting pack,” he said, presumably referring to all those trying to break the recent duopoly of Kilkenny and Tipperary.

“There’s very little in it, there’s not any gap. All the other managers here are in Division 1A (Anthony Daly, Dublin, current league champions; Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Cork; Anthony Cunningham, Galway), talking about Dublin and how they’ve moved ahead.

“Two years ago, Dublin played Antrim here in Croke Park and lost. If you’re working at ground level with the players, you realise — Antrim are as well placed as Dublin are now. If the players can get over the lack of self-belief, that’s the only thing that’s telling against them. Kilkenny don’t do challenge matches, Kilkenny build from within, and that’s what I’ve been saying to them this year. We need to build from within, build the structures — the players need to build from within. They need to come down here (Croke Park) then and have the confidence to perform. On any given Sunday, anything can happen — the wind can be blowing, the rain can be falling, the ball can break the wrong way, you have to have the bit of luck as well. But Antrim need to consolidate, they need to realise their ambitions, that’s a big thing for them. I’m not up there to start again from scratch, to start developing again, I’m up there to build on the work that’s been done, to get them competitive.

“There comes a time in the games ahead — and this will be the difference between Antrim and the other teams in the hunting pack — when they’ll have to decide in the course of a game that they can win these games. They have to arrive now, they have to take their opportunity when it comes.

“You want to be playing Offaly, you want to be playing Wexford, you want to be playing Clare, Limerick, Laois — the traditions are there already, it’s time to arrive, it’s time to perform.”