By John Harrington

Antrim hurler Neil McManus is undaunted by the prospect of facing reigning All-Ireland Champions Galway in the first round of the Allianz Hurling League on Sunday.

The Saffrons are back up Division 1B for the first time since suffering a shock relegation play-off defeat to Kerry in 2015 and will go into the match as massive underdogs.

But McManus believes the challenge is one to be embraced rather than feared.

“You have to view the prospect with a big smile on your face and open arms,” he said.

“It's been a long time since Antrim have played the All-Ireland champions in a competitive fixture like Sunday.

“A lot of our players wouldn't have had this experience before, and you want to play against the best. That's why we're all doing this.

“It's a huge step up for us but it's massive for Antrim hurling. Our main goal last year was to get back up to Division 1 hurling and we managed that.

“We know it's a big step-up, but for Antrim to progress we need to be in Division 1B. The goal now is to stabilise as a 1B team.”

Since suffering that Relegation play-off defeat to Kerry in 2015, Antrim’s rehabilitation has been slow and sometimes painful.

They won just two matches in Division 2A of the Allianz Hurling League in 2016, and convincing all of the best hurlers in the county to commit to the cause hasn’t always been easy.

They suffered Christy Ring Cup Final defeats to Meath in 2016 and Carlow in 2017, and even though the ship has been steadied somewhat by the management team of Terence McNaughton and Dominic McKinley, the deep waters of Division 1B might prove to be choppy.

“I think we just need to be a wee bit more confident than we have been previously and believe in the talent that's there,” said McManus.

“We would obviously have a much smaller poor of players than nearly every other county we're going up against, but I would see that smaller pool as being full of quality.

“We need to back ourselves a little bit more to try to deliver at this level.

“We have been in a period of transition, there's no doubt about that. There has been a huge turn-over in players over the last three years or so and maintaining Division 1 status was always going to be hard.

“We probably could have done it and should have done it for another year and it took us two seasons to get back here.

“Hopefully we can stem the flow of people in and out and try to keep that collective group together for a longer period of time.

“I think that's possible and if we could do that and keep our house in order it would be a massive help for us."

What Antrim have in their favour going forward is that hurling at club level in the county is as strong as ever.

The sport is nothing short of a religion in villages like Cushendall, Loughiel, and Dunloy, and when that sort of culture is so deeply embedded then there’s always reasons to be optimistic.

“Absolutely,” said McManus. “You are your culture. We have to get that into our county team.

“That has to become our culture, that we don't accept anything other than the top standard. At times that probably hasn't been the case, but we have to do that.

“There are strong enough and good enough hurlers there, and I would say players who desire it enough to make it the norm in Antrim.

“People want to play at the top level, they don't want to be in a safer environment. Let's go and play at the top level, let's see where we are and see how we can improve.

“We're going on Sunday to get as good a performance out of ourselves as we can. Let’s learn from Galway, let’s learn from our own performance what we can do better for the next week out.

“If we get our performance right, then we won't be too worried about the result.”