Antrim: Super scores and saves of Saffron hurling decade

Antrim hurlers set the bar very high for the decade to come in 2010.

It’s impossible to make like-for-like comparisons given how much the hurling Championship has changed since the back door was introduced in 1997, but it’s difficult to argue against 2010 being their best summer since 1991, and 10 years later remaining that.

It’s the benchmark because the currency of elite sport – winning, specifically winning against top opposition on the biggest stage – has only been cashed in once by Antrim since they beat Offaly in 1989, and that was 2010.

Antrim played 42 Championship matches during the decade (not counting the Ulster Championship, which the Ulster Council hasn’t done the past three years by not staging it) and finished with just about a winning record: 22-19-1 with the solitary draw (they won one and lost another two after extra-time) the fiasco that was the 2016 Christy Ring Cup final which Meath thought they won because the referee couldn’t count up the score. Meath really did win the replay.

2010 also stands out because, despite the bizarre tendency to frame that ’89 All-Ireland win as one of the greatest shocks ever – it was the third time Antrim beat Offaly that year – the Saffrons really were given no chance against Dublin.

In the previous round Antrim had launched a furious comeback to squeak past Carlow at Casement Park, while Anthony Daly’s Dubs had obliterated his native Clare.

So, the display Dinny Cahill’s Antrim side produced in turning round a six-point deficit in the final 20 minutes deserves its place in the memories of Antrim supporters, and it features twice in this collection of the scores and saves that marked the Saffron decade.

SCORES

2010 All-Ireland SHC Qualifier phase three: Dublin 0-19 Antrim 1-17

Karl Stewart

ANTRIM’S comeback was all the more impressive because they didn’t score any goals in overhauling the Dubs. Instead they outscored Dublin eight points to one down the stretch to grab the win.

Antrim had scored the game’s only goal in the first half when PJ O’Connell was sharpest onto a ball over the top of the Dubs defence and raced home before firing past Gary Maguire.

The winner was far less spectacular, but was just reward for another industrious performance from Karl Stewart, something the St Gall’s man made a habit of.

The sides were level at the break, but Dublin looked to have shaken off the visitors by the 50th minute, when they led 0-18 to 1-9. But Antrim roused themselves and chipped away as eventually Shane McNaughton brought them level with an injury-time free.

When Dublin couldn’t get their hands on a long ball into the full-forward line it eventually fell Stewart’s way inside the large square and he flicked over his shoulder to book an All-Ireland quarter-final clash with Cork.

2015 Leinster SHC Qualifier Group: Antrim 5-17 Laois 3-22

Ciaran Clarke

The decade following 2010 was generally disappointment mixed with the odd shaft of light that turned out to be a false dawn.

In the overall context of the season, Ciaran Clarke’s match-winning goal against Laois in 2015 was in vain, but in the moment it was just about perfect.

The first Championship match of the season, with everything still possible, Antrim were two points down at the end of a Ballycastle thriller. The last puck of the game was about to come – a penalty with the man standing over it on the club pitch where he’s hurled all his life.

Two years previously, Clarke scored another memorable goal, that time in Antrim’s All-Ireland U21 semi-final win over Wexford, a victory that took them into the county’s first All-Ireland final at that grade and only their third top level final ever.

They went on to be hammered by Clare in the decider, though they were hardly alone in that experience as the Banner romped to the second of three successive titles with a group of players that backboned a Liam MacCarthy title win the week after beating Antrim.

Everything after Clarke smashed the ball past Laois ’keeper Enda Rowland went wrong for Antrim as successive defeats in Westmeath and Carlow sent Antrim down to the Christy Ring Cup. But in that moment, nothing could beat it.

2017 Division 2A final: Antrim 2-12 Carlow 0-15

Neil McManus

Antrim’s 2010s League experiences were just as tough as their Championship ones.

The only wins over counties recognised to be operating at a level Antrim might aspire to were against Wexford in 2012 and Offaly in 2014 and 2018, although by the time of that second victory the Faithful were heading towards the rut that would take them to the 2020 Christy Ring Cup.

The League high-point, which came with the added bonus of silverware, was the 2017 Division 2A final where an assured, muscular performance saw off Carlow in Newry.

The score of the game was probably a point from Ciaran Clarke with five minutes left, but Antrim’s next, and final, point summed up so much of their composed display at Pairc Esler.

A dirty ball won out of a ruck produced a free for Neil McManus, a stick-length inside his own 65 hard against the sideline. Antrim lead was just two points, a minute into injury-time, but McManus sent it over the black spot like it was from the middle of the 20-metre line. The point meant Carlow needed a goal there was no way Antrim were going to allow them that day.

SAVES

2010 All-Ireland SHC Qualifier phase three: Dublin 0-19 Antrim 1-17

Chris O’Connell

THAT Antrim weren’t completely cut adrift by the time they began their comeback against Dublin was largely thanks to Chris O’Connell in goals.

The Loughgiel man wore the Antrim number one jersey more often than anyone else through the past decade, even though he was number two for his club behind DD Quinn for almost the entire time he played with the county.

Antrim were blessed with some serious goalkeeping talent through the decade, with Dunloy’s Gareth McGhee, Ballycastle’s Ryan McGarry, Quinn and O’Connell all featuring at various stages before Ryan Elliott made the spot his own in 2018.

Against Dublin, O’Connell pulled off reflex stops to deny Alan McCrabbe in the first half and, crucially, with Antrim trailing by five and Dublin turning up the heat midway through the second, Paul Ryan.

Ryan shot after baring down on a Hill 16 filling up with Dublin supporters ahead of the football Qualifier against Armagh. A green flag at that stage would have buried Antrim. O’Connell made sure there was still life in the Saffrons.

2019 Joe McDonagh Cup: Offaly 4-18 Antrim 3-23

Ryan Elliott

Like the Laois match Ciaran Clarke won with his dramatic penalty, Antrim’s Joe McDonagh Cup victory over Offaly last year ultimately counted for nought.

While it did keep them out of a relegation fight, it also set up a home match that would have seen them into the final, but Antrim flopped spectacularly against Westmeath and the euphoria of Tullamore faded in barely a week. Offaly’s subsequent relegation to the Christy Ring Cup also put it in context but, at the time, there was still plenty to celebrate.

It was also a cracking game, with 48 scores and three smashing Antrim goals – two from Keelan Molloy and one from his Dunloy club-mate Nigel Elliott.

Nigel’s cousin Ryan may have been beaten four times, but he still pulled off a string of spectacular stops, showing why the future of the Antrim number jersey is in safe hands, more than 20 years after Ryan’s father Shane wore it with distinction. His best was a full-length dive to deflect away a rasping first half effort from Conor Mahon when Offaly were threatening to get on top.

Whatever about the following week in Dunloy against Westmeath, that Tullamore victory stands as Antrim’s most recent Championship win – a distinction no-one knows how long it will hold.