Saffrons face Banner’s finest

Bord Gais Energy All-Ireland U21 HC final:

Indeed it could be argued that despite the occasion, these two counties heading in opposite directions: reigning champions Clare backboned by several members of the senior side that last Sunday should have won the senior All-Ireland, Antrim struggling to get its players to train.

Yesterday Clare management duo Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor joined their Antrim counterpart Kevin Ryan in Dublin. Two short conversations quickly illustrated the gap between the counties. First, Gerry O’Connor, talking about the Clare youngsters, particularly the 14 on the extended senior panel.

“These guys, they have a different mentality,” he said. “They only know winning, they only know how to enjoy themselves and express themselves on the field. They’re probably the most creative and innovative set of players we’ve ever had the opportunity to work with. They’re continuously pushing themselves. They’re continuously setting seriously high standards. By the time they got back into us on Tuesday night after the final, all they were concerned about was who was going to make the U21 team.

“They’re all under no great pressure either. They’re all students. None of them are in employment. None of them would understand real pressures in life. They’ve got lots of opportunities and time on their hands and they’re using it to mentally recharge to give a huge performance on Saturday.”

Then you look at the challenge facing Kevin Ryan. Before their shock semi-final win against Wexford, he couldn’t get much more a dozen players to training while the Antrim County Board scheduled a full round of football championship games on the day of the match, denying him several players. Hardly a level playing-field then, is it?

“It’s not that I’m only interested in the underdog. I’m very much a hurling person. I don’t want to get into it now but I think there is lip service paid to development of hurling in the country. We’re looking at doing things internationally and we haven’t enough done nationally. I would certainly see potential in Antrim, I would see ambition in certain areas there and in talking to the power-brokers in the board, they are ambitious to bring out what’s there and unite the county somehow.”

What of his problems though in attracting players to training? Those first evenings after he took over the U21s, only a handful at training after he himself made the five-hour 250-mile trip from his native Waterford, that must be disheartening?

“Yeah well, the first night when we had seven there, that was demoralising and it was decision-time — forget this or pursue it. I spoke with the team secretary that night, he’s a selector as well, and we decided to look at a two-year plan with the U21s and we said we’d work through this year, get it out of the way and set up a very young squad next year and get them working early.”

He wasn’t expecting to end up in a first All-Ireland final for Antrim. “No, we wouldn’t have, to be honest. We knew talent-wise it was certainly there and we had a nice game-plan in place to suit Wexford. We had seen them once or twice so it wasn’t a total surprise we were able to beat them...”

Ah come on Kevin, Wexford odds nearly 1/100! “It was a shock.”

Should they triumph on Saturday though, it won’t just be a shock, it will be Krakatoa. The fear though is this could be an even bigger trimming that last year’s semi-final 28-point humiliation when the same two teams met.