By John Harrington

The crowd that invaded the Corrigan Park pitch after Antrim’s Tailteann Cup quarter-final victory over Carlow told a story.

Most of them were kids, jumping for joy, and making a bee-line for the nearest Antrim footballer to get within touching distance.

Antrim captain, Peter Healy, like all of his team-mates, gave those young supporters as much time as they wanted. They’re getting as big a kick out of inspiring a new generation as the kids are from watching their heroes win.

With a Tailteann Cup semi-final in Croke Park on Sunday against Meath to come now, a real buzz is building in Antrim football that some bright days might be ahead.

“Something like this is especially big for Antrim football,” says Healy. “The last time we were here was a League Final in 2016 and I wasn't there. And the last time before that was a Tommy Murphy match some years before that.

“With Antrim football hopefully on an upward curve there's no better time to have a game in Croke Park and hopefully we'll get a big crowd down here and a lot of youngsters.

“I was here for the Tailteann Cup launch and Jack Cooney, who managed the Westmeath team that won it last year, said that the kids in Westmeath all think that Westmeath won the All-Ireland last year and we're not telling them anything different. I thought that was brilliant.

“And it really is brilliant to have young lads come down here and watch Antrim in an All-Ireland semi-final, it's just fantastic, and hopefully we can drive it on and help inspire the next generation of Antrim football.

“There's a good bit of a buzz now, it's rare enough we get this with Antrim football. Usually the hurlers would be in the spotlight a bit more for big days so it's good because we have a lot of young lads on the team as well who haven't played in Croke Park before and this is a big opportunity for those lads.”

Antrim will go in as underdogs against Meath, but after winning their four matches to date in the competition by an average of seven points each, they certainly won’t fear the Royals.

“Whether it was Down or Meath they would have been favourites either way but, look, we've turned over some good teams this year,” says Healy. “We turned over Cavan in the League, we turned over Fermanagh there a few weeks ago.

“Look, momentum is a great thing as well. We're coming down here with no fear, a nice big pitch, and we'll give it a rattle, absolutely.

“I'm sure Meath will know about our threats and we'll know about their threats so it should be a good game of hopefully nice, open football on a good day in Croke Park.

Antrim have scored an average of 17 points in each of their Tailteann Cup matches to date and in players like Adam Loughran, Dominic McEnhill, and Ruairi McCann have lethal finishers in attack.

Healy feels like if he and his colleagues in defence can keep teams tight at the back, they have enough firepower to win most matches.

“Absolutely, we've so much danger up there,” he says.

“We've been scoring a lot of goals in the last few games and we know that if we can keep it tight at the back and break quickly and get it into those lads, they'll do serious damage. So that's our plan.”