By Paul Kelly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REALITY hit hard for Tomas McCann watching Kerry take Dublin apart in the quarter-final at Croke Park.

 

“I suppose that’s when things finally got back to normal,” said the 22-year-old.

“They were in the next round and you were out.

“It was disappointing to be watching the really big games at the business end of the championship. You wanted to be involved in it.”

McCann hasn’t had much time to sit around contemplating Antrim’s glorious summer since the Saffrons exited the championship at the hands of Kerry.

He has returned to action with his club Cargin as their truncated season finally gets up and running and he’s also settling into a new role as a bustling centre-forward for Irish League Championship side, Donegal Celtic.

The West Belfast club have signed the UUJ  student after he made a promising impact as a substitute in a couple of pre-season friendlies, one of which just happened to be against Athletico Madrid!

“I played a bit of underage soccer growing up but I was only messing about, there was always so much gaelic on,” added Tomas.

“A couple of years ago I turned out with a team in Antrim and a team in Belfast. I maybe played about three games a year.

“After coming on at half-time in a couple of the pre-season games I signed up with DC. The manager [Paddy Kelly] knows that the gaelic will always be my first priority and he seems happy enough about that.”

The memories of Antrim’s championship run are still vivid for McCann.

He cites getting to the Ulster Final as his personal highlight of a summer that had many for Saffron fans.

“There was a great buzz in the build up to the final,” he said.

“Everything about it and then also losing to Tyrone. That will stick with me for a while. You always remember the matches you get beaten in.

“During the last two or three months everything with Antrim was really professional.

“You really had to work hard and there was no messing about, but it was enjoyable to be winning.”

McCann has been part of the Antrim Senior panel for three years, making his breakthrough as an 18-year-old. He has endured some bad days as an Antrim player but noticed a sea-change in attitude this season under coach Paddy Bradley.

“There is a completely different atmosphere,” he said.

“Personally I went from playing with a bunch of older boys to fellas my own age. The whole craic was totally different and once we were promoted, it felt like we had nothing to lose.

“Right from the start of the year we wanted to get out of Division Four.

“The team was very young and individually we all wanted to get out of Division Four to make ourselves better footballers.

“Once we had done that, we realised we could push on. We went to the Division Four final and didn’t play well but we still nearly won it.

“That made us realise that we had a good panel and that we could push on and I think that showed in the Championship.

“Bradley made us realise that we were as good as anyone else. He drilled it into us and after a while it starts sticking in your head.

“After a while you start thinking, ‘why should we get beaten’ that was a big thing.

“As the weeks went on, we started to play with more confidence and started to get better.”

Tomas admits that youth and inexperience probably played some part in their Ulster Final downfall against the vastly experienced Tyrone, but he also claims the team learnt an awful lot just from playing in that game.

“Against Kerry we had improved big time from the Tyrone game,” he said.

“We actually felt hard done by to lose that game but thinking back, Kerry got stronger as the game progressed.

“We know we will have to lift it to another level again to get anywhere next year.

“But there’ll probably be more fresh faces pushing for a starting spot and that’s healthy for any county team. Next year you could have another couple of boys coming on, showing what they can do, pushing on and improving the team and panel.

“Everybody is already looking forward to pushing on even harder next year.

“Expectations will be higher but that’s better than being put down all the time. Maybe there’ll be more respect for Antrim football. Hopefully things can start working in our favour.”