Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WHEN CUSH COMES TO SHOVE
Antrim champs determined to stun big guns
NEIL MCMANUS is hoping that experience meets opportunity as Ruairi Og, Cushendall line up their latest AIB All-ireland club hurling title bid this afternoon.
If this was an inter-county tie, Antrim wouldn’t have a prayer against Galway and Mcmanus knows it.
But with club v club, the terms of engagement are different and Cushendall’s record in All-ireland semi-finals commands respect. Twelve years ago they lost to
Loughrea by four points.
Two years later, De La Salle only knocked them out after extra time.
In 2016, they beat two-time All-ireland champions Sarsfields and face 2013 winners St Thomas’s in Parnell Park today.
“I feel the top four clubs in Antrim would be competitive in any county championship in Ireland,” Mcmanus insisted. “I have no doubt about that.
“De La Salle was a real near miss. We were a point up after four minutes of injury time and Brian Phelan, played midfield for Waterford for a long time, got a sideline ball from the midfield line.
“We were really well prepared in February ‘09 for that De La Salle game and played really well too. That wouldn’t irk me just as much because our level of performance was really high and we played very well.
“We should have been a wee bit smarter about closing it out whenever you’re up by a point with three or four minutes of injury time played. The one against Loughrea, we didn’t play well.
“We didn’t prepare as well as we know now how to prepare and that was a chance that was completely gone abegging anyway in my opinion. “It’s easy to look back now, you look at how the game’s moved on. It’s 12 years ago now, how the game’s moved on, you would nearly everything differently now. “I think that day against Sarsfields we played really well, our performance level was very high and they had an off day which was great for us really.”
They were well beaten by Na Piarsaigh in the subsequent All-ireland final, a game which proved to be key forward Shane Mcnaughton’s last for the club before he decided to give his acting career his full attention.
“Shane is in New York, living in New York and he just completed his first play, just off Broadway there. It’s called ‘In Danny’s Box’.
“Great lad, a wee small place like Cushendall but it’s very much into the arts. There’s an awful lot of traditional music, there’s a lot of story-telling groups. There’d be quite a drama scene there too.
“I was talking to Sambo (inset) [Shane’s father]. He had flown out to watch him in New York and I said, ‘How did you get on?’ and he says, ‘The wee b ****** s was good at it!’ He was as surprised as anybody. Even the last game that he played was in Croke Park against Na Piarsaigh and he was outstanding. Quality player, played well on the big days all the time. Confident. Backed himself.
“Again, Conor Carson was fullforward for us throughout the Antrim Championship, awesome player and he is now living in Spain, he’s becoming a pilot. We’re having to deal with that, big loss out of the team as well.”
Still, the 30-year-old strives for another opportunity at a club final in Croke Park after the bitter experience of three years ago.
“Hopefully we’ll get the chance again and we’ll go about things differently. To be beaten by 11 points in an All-ireland final is not nice.”