Antrim can enjoy success like Limerick by focusing on youth, insists McNaughton

LAST Sunday, O’Donovan Rossa’s hurlers travelled to Cushendall to face Ruairi Óg in an all-county league game. Decimated by injuries and players away in America, the Belfast men lost to an understrength home team 6-28 to 0-8. They scored just two points in the second half and slipped out of the top division again.

“They had nobody to do umpire, nobody to do linesman,” recalls Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton, Antrim’s joint manager.

“(Manager) Jim Close, who I felt sorry for, was standing on the line with one other adult and one sub.

“I was at the Rossa game in Belfast about six weeks ago. There were about two dozen Cushendall people there and one from Rossa. On a summer’s evening in Belfast.

“There lies the problem — lifeless clubs. Antrim need to look at themselves.”

That this could happen to one of Antrim’s most storied clubs, third in the roll of honour for the Volunteer Cup with 15 Championships, is a neat summary of why the £1m pledged by the GAA for the ‘Gaelfast’ regeneration of Gaelic games in Belfast is urgently needed.

If Paul Donnelly, a former county hurler of the ‘90s from the St Paul’s club and the chief man in this operation, needs any inspiration, he would find it in Limerick.

Some time ago, the multi-millionaire horse owner JP McManus decided to add another investment in Limerick hurling. Having contributed €4 million to the Gaelic Grounds in 2004 and been main jersey sponsor for several years, his largesse towards the county hurling team has been staggering and in recent years he has backed a plan targeted at increasing participation in the city.

“There were 8% of kids in primary schools in Limerick that were playing hurling. Now, there is 52%,” states McNaughton.

“They attacked it. They went into schools and attacked it and they put on camps on a Saturday in the city of Limerick.”

It helps that they have some big figures in there. Joe McKenna from McManus’ club South Liberties and a former county hurling manager has been a driving force.

Anthony Daly, the 1995 All-Ireland winning Clare captain and former Clare and Dublin manager, along with Jerry Wallace who was Cork’s trainer and a former Antrim manager for an ill-fated spell, are heading up the academies.

All that positivity bleeds into this weekend, when Limerick and Galway meet in the All-Ireland final.

That it is these two is not lost on McNaughton.

Ahead of 2005, Sambo and Dominic ‘Woody’ McKinley were in charge of the Antrim minors. The county board chairman Dr John McSparran allowed them the access to players and the chance to really push on with this group.

“And we played clubs and trained those boys and had something like 12 challenge matches to get up to the pace of the game,” recalls McNaughton.

“Now, you’ll not tell me that a 16, 17 year old in Antrim is any different from a 16, 17 year old in Galway. They are not. There is nobody on a minor team with a pocketful of All-Ireland medals or All-Stars, any more than they are doing their homework, or getting pimples or falling out with their girlfriends and the world is going to end.

“So, there is no reason why the hurling shouldn’t be the same.”