By John Harrington

Three and a half weeks have passed since Antrim’s defeat to Cork in the All-Ireland SHC Preliminary Quarter-Final, but the sense of an opportunity missed still grates with Neil McManus.

The Saffrons dominated the first half with the wind at their backs but some poor misses from both open play and frees meant they hit 12 wides and only led by a point at half-time instead of a more handsome margin.

McManus feels like if they were five or six up then they really could have tested Cork’s mettle, but instead the Rebels came good in the second half and finished with a flourish to win comfortably enough in the end.

Despite the lingering sense of disappointment about the result, McManus is still visibly enthused by the sense of occasion the match produced.

Corrigan Park was packed to the rafters because Antrim supporters really feel again like they have a quality team to support, and McManus believes it’s critical that the GAA gives Antrim GAA every support it can now to build on this solid foundation.

“It was brilliant,” said McManus at the launch of the 2022 M. Donnelly GAA All-Ireland Poc Fada Finals.

“To have a big championship match back in West Belfast. I’m not sure of the population – it’s got to be a couple of hundred thousand – and it’s such an untapped resource for us. We need to make gains there.

“We need to fund that Gaelfast programme that started five years ago and stopped during Covid. I think the finance has been cut quite considerably. We need to get something sorted whereby we’re able to get the same impact as Dublin did.

“West Belfast has the culture, the history. Some of the strongest clubs are operating there. So there’s something to build on. You’re not building on foundations of sand.

“And it could be unbelievable for what’s coming. If Casement Park comes about and West Belfast is reinvigorated from a hurling viewpoint, it would tie in beautifully.

“I'm hoping that the GAA understand that and grab that opportunity because it won't be there forever. Everything has kind of aligned, Antrim are starting to push in their own right as a hurling team, Casement has got good news, hopefully we're going to see the first sod turned on that, and then thirdly we have the financial ability now to make that push.

“If the GAA can row in behind that and support things like Gaelfast then I believe it can come together.”

At the age of 34, McManus is in the twilight of his career and still hasn’t made made a decision on whether or not he’ll hurl for a 17th season with Antrim in 2023.

There’s a big part of him that wishes he was starting out all over again right now because any young hurler joining the Antrim team is coming up to a well run set-up overseen by manager Darren Gleeson that compares favourably with any top-tier county.

“I was at a north Antrim U-17 final on Friday night past,” says McManus. “There's a young lad playing for Loughgiel called Jack McCloskey, you're going to hear an awful lot about him, don't worry. He scored 3-14 of Loughgiel's 3-18 and they won by a point.

“They were down by four or five coming down the stretch. He scored 1-3 or something. Then he went back and defended for a couple of minutes just to make sure that Glenarriffe weren't going to get a winner. I haven't seen a minor like him for quite a while.

“I was just thinking it would be a great time to be 17 and to be as good as Jack McCloskey is. He's going to get the opportunity to come into a really good setup which Antrim have in place now, the set up is as good as the vast majority of teams.

“If you were 17, 18 coming in...Brendan Murphy, who is the strength and conditioning coach with Antrim, getting his hands on you, going into that type of coaching setup that we have now...the aspiration and the ambition of that group of players is very high.

“It's a great time for some young lad to be breaking into the Antrim panel.”

Darren Gleeson has yet to publicly confirm that he’ll stay on as Antrim manager in 2023, but the mood music is positive.

The Antrim players certainly want him to remain in the position because he’s made such a positive impact since taking on the role in September 2019.

“I think there's two things, one is the standards that he's brought himself,” says McManus of Gleeson’s positive influence.

“The second bit actually came more from the financial end of things. Antrim have a group of people now called the Saffron Business Forum and what they do is they're a group of businesses who get together and they fund raise essentially for Antrim.

“They do business between each other, hurling and football. I think somewhere in the region of about 130 grand is raised every year, a serious amount of money.

“That sort of financial ability hasn't been there probably at any stage bar the last two years in my time. You can see the benefit. We're able to do things that other counties were doing and we weren't doing.”

So where to now for Antrim hurling after a positive 2022 that saw them stay up in Division 1 of the Allianz Hurling League and win the Joe McDonagh Cup for the second time in three years? What is the next step the county must take?

“Winning games in the Leinster Championship, that's the next step,” says McManus. “Taking the opportunities that come. It was really disheartening two years ago when we won the Joe McDonagh and got into the Leinster round-robin and it didn't take place and we had just the one game against Dublin.

“This group needs the games, that will bring them on. That's what they're going to get and we need to take full of advantage from next year onwards.

“We have to stabilise ourselves as a Division 1 team and not be yo-yoing. We need to be winning games both in the Leinster round robin and Division 1 and being more comfortable in that environment.”