‘We have given summer away to other sports’

McEntee wants GAA to row back on split season as injuries dog Antrim’s preparations

Whether Antrim’s glass should be half full or half empty heading into tonight’s Ulster SFC opener against Down in Newry depends on your perspective.

Andy McEntee’s men stormed out of the starting blocks in Division 3. Limerick beaten in Rathkeale, Offaly chinned in Belfast. But from there they lost four on the spin, including a double-scores defeat to the Mourne men.

However, they won again when they had to, beating Wicklow on the final day in a do-or-die high-wire game and secured league status. Wicklow’s ambush of Westmeath since throws a brighter light on that result.

Perhaps the added context of the extent of their injury list tips the scale and decrees that Antrim put down a good league.

There are no fewer than four Saffron players on the long road back from cruciate injuries – Ryan Murray, Conor Stewart, Kevin Small and Patrick Finnegan. Conhuir Johnston, Stephen Beatty, Adam Loughran, Eoghan McCabe and Ruairi McCann (Aghagallon) have faced long spells out, the latter pair getting back for the final rounds. In their absence, Antrim blooded 12 new players.

A good league campaign for McEntee? “I guess given that we had won our first two games I am a little disappointed really,” the Saffrons boss reflected.

“You win your first two games and then you don’t pick up your next two points until the final round and it leaves you in a position where if you didn’t win that you were down because Wicklow would have had us on the head-to-head, so up and down is how I would have seen our league.

“Having said that, when you take into account the number of injuries we have had to key players, we ended up introducing 12 new fellas to National League.

Stress

“We had ACLs, a couple of guys who had Gilmore’s groin operations, Peter Healy had a stress fracture on his ankle, a lot of longer-term stuff like.”

McEntee sounds a familiar refrain when it comes to the split season. The pressure on county players is, he says, unrelenting.

“From a county player’s perspective, the split season is damaging. I think what most county managers are finding is that players go through the leagues and championship with their county, then they play with their clubs when they might be carrying a few knocks.

“They end up having to play and maybe clubs don’t have the money to look after them like they would be in a county setup. They come back to us at the start of the year and they are not able for it, they are not able for the workload and they break down. That is certainly the case.

“With us, ACLs are ACLs and everyone has their theory on that, I am not a medical person but they are unfortunate. Peter Healy breaks a bone in his foot, collision injuries like that are unavoidable but wear and tear injuries . . . there just seems to be too many of them and it is not just Antrim, it is nationwide.”

Is a row back on the split season required?

“Egos are dangerous things and fellas rowing back means you accept that this was not the right move. From the word go I have been saying this is not the right move.

“We haven given away the summer to other sports in a competitive arena, we have given away the summer, June, July, August and September were Gaelic games months and now you are rushing everything into the first six months. You got arguably the best games that will be played all year being played in the snow, sleet, frost and rain when nobody wants to go to them. Why? Because the weather is too bloody cold.”

Antrim and McEntee reached the Tailteann Cup semi-final last year, losing to eventual champions and his former charges Meath. And if that is where the Saffrons end up, McEntee is happy the competition serves football.

“Our eyes are firmly fixed on Down.

“It is a long time since Antrim won an Ulster Championship match so that is the first challenge for us. If we find ourselves in the Tailteann Cup then, yes, our focus 100 per cent will be on it like it was last year because if you find yourself in the Tailteann Cup that is where you deserve to be.

“It gives teams games; for all the training you do, teams need games. I have always said that the proportion of training to games was unrealistic and now you are getting games in the summer and not in January and February.

“It was a great experience for us last year and certainly we were very disappointed we did not get over Meath and that is a sign of how much it has caught on.”