Antrim slowly finding their feet under new management!!

National League Division Two 

Laois 5-08 Antrim 3-06

Antrim camógs faced Laois in the Camross GAA grounds and gave a spirited performance despite a tiring four and a half hour bus journey. Antrim were quick off the mark and soon built up a three point lead through a placed ball from Nicole O’Neill, a point from play put over by Orlagh O’Hara and an impressive conversion by Michaela Convery who within a short time has a perfectly good goal disallowed for alleged shoulder charging. This was the turning point in the game as Antrim instead of being 1-03 to 0-00 ahead, as their play warranted, soon found themselves behind following a series of frees awarded to Laois ,the first ending up in the net following a defensive mix-up and the next three put over the bar by Laois placed ball specialist Elaine Mahony.

Antrim replied through points from play via Sinead Laverty and Nicole O’Neill, but the frees continued to flow for the home county and Mahony  and Sarah Fitzgerald soon  took further advantage of a combination of over exuberant tackling by the Antrim defence and over- zealous refereeing. Antrim had to work hard to survive Laois pressure and Aileen Martin, Michaela Convery and Shannon Graham all excelled themselves. Laois threatened to overrun Antrim with a well worked goal involving Dollard and Parkinson which was well finished off by Aisling O’Dea but Antrim replied with a fine goal from Cushendall’s  Sinéad Cosgrove to leave a half time score of Laois 2-05 Antrim 1-05 with everything still to play for.

Antrim faded badly in the second half through a combination of tiredness ,following their journey and being faced with not only an uphill task ,but an uphill slope on a pitch barely adequate for county camogie. Laois took control of the game and despite a number of substitutions, the visitors fell behind to a brace of goals from Laois forwards O’Dea and Dollard whose pace and guile was impressive and proved too much for a young, exposed  and inexperienced Antrim back line to cope with. Two fine close range Saffron goals from Orlagh McCall and a point from Michaela Convery were still not enough to catch a rampant home side who scored another goal through Parkinson  and two more points from frees to run out deserved winners.

Final Score: Laois 5-08 Antrim 3-06

Manager Paul Boyle was glowing in his praise of his young Antrim  side afterwards saying; ” I think we did very well against what is probably the strongest team in our group and the current leaders. They are an experienced team and we have a number of young players in our team we are trying to settle in, so to come here and score 3-06 against them was a positive. We need to tighten up in places but I think we are slowly improving and I am looking forward to the Westmeath game next weekend.”

Antrim team: N.Cosgrove, E.Costello, C.Drain T.Scullion, S.Laverty , A.Martin , A.McCall, S.Graham B.Orchin, C.Hamill, M.Convery, Nicole O’Neill, Niamh O’Neill, Sinead Cosgrove, Orlagh O’Hara

Subs Used: C.Patterson, N.Adams, O.McCall , O.Donnelly.

Laois: L.Dunne, M.Burke,  R.Bermingham , A.Burke, L Ryan, S.Fitzgerald, C.Walsh, S.Creagh,  L.Mahony, L.Maher, E.Mahony, M.Holmes, A.O’Dea,  N.Dollard, O.Parkinson.