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The way Antrim are hurling at present the Christy Ring is their level and I wouldnt be surprised if they lost a play off against the Christy Ring winners.

If Carlow had have came to Belfast to actually hurl instead of dishing out physical violence, they would have beaten Antrim out the gate.

Westmeath have 14 hurling clubs (a much lesser pick than Antrim) and with an astute manager in Michael Ryan they are playing brilliant hurling. Carlow and probably Kerry would be in the same boat.

While Antrim are more than capable of playing excellent hurling with plenty of very good hurlers (eg. the second half v Westmeath, first half v Kerry) it would appear there are no tactics or gameplan, The amount of aimless clearances out of defence that landed into a Westmeath paw last week must have been at least 70% and yesterday wasnt much better.

Antrim on a county level have been on a steady slide to hurling oblivion since the county board in their wisdom decided to appoint Jerry Wallace over Dinny Cahill, who had Antrim punching well above their weight especially when you think of the performances against Tipp, Wexford and Dublin. We were ahead of Carlow, Laois and Westmeath at that time. I remember saying at the time that Antrim would regret getting rid of Dinny and unfortunately that has been the case.

The present management team really have to go. 2 of them failed the previous time and a 4 man management team dosent work.

It is time for the county board to get their heads out of their hole and cop on that club hurling in Antrim is on life support, especially at lower levels. A hurling county with ONE hurling development officer does not cut it. We would need at least 4 or 5 more at least.

Saffron Vision my hole.

I couldn't agree more. Being a good hurler and gaining an All Star most certainly does not make you a good manager and this has been proven over the last few years.  IMO The "management team" Did not have the man Management skills that were required. unfortunately.  They "or really Sambo" because let's be honest he called most of the shots made a lot of strange decisions that lead to defeats and none more so than bringing Griffin back last year for the Christy ring final and snubbed players that had knocked their pan in for the pre-season and everything else.  Was it 3 Christy Ring finals lost?  How do u get players up for a relegation play off and with another few going from the panel to America what's are chances ? Antrim hurling is very low at the minute   

Our 1st 20 minutes today was incredible. Intensity, skill, tackling, running and scoring left us deservedly 9 points up. I'm still scratching my head and trying to figure out how it went so wrong. How did we go in at half time only 1 point up?

Why was Nigel Elliott taken off at half time? If it was anything other than an injury then I'm stunned.

Nigel may we'll have been the easy option.  To be honest he wasn't at the races last week at all but neither were the other forwards.  But if u can understand the decisions that the management have made at different times over this year then you'll be doing well. I said it before if it wasn't for MCManus I hate to think what the score would have been today. 

I don't think even the most pessimistic of us saw us in a relegation playoff at the start of it, especially with 3 games at home

I wd totally agree but yet here we are.  Apart from promotion in the league last year there has been very little to be happy about.

I wouldn't go that far. Couple of very close games that could have went either way.

It's pretty much reflective of where we are though we really need to win the relegation playoff now. Relegation would be a disaster.

What points do you get for very close games ? 

All time low for Antrim    Disaster

James and Eddie loosing out to Keelan and Donal.  To be honest a lot of changes could have been made.  I would only hope that Aaron does a bit better than last week because he was very poor by his standards. I thought his striking was poor. IMO     As for staying with the Nigel, Clarkey and Johnty, lets hope they perform. We cant afford to only play for half a match although if we cant beat Kerry ??    its the other match that really matters - Carlow -  Its all or nothing

Hard luck lads. Beaten by 2 by Westmeath and by 1 by Laois.
A very impressive effort today

Impressive isn't the word I wd have used - unfortunately. Too many not up to the task on the day.  First half wasn't good at all and yes 2nd half was a bit better but fell short.  Nigel, Clarky and Johnty never looked at it for whatever reason.  Always said they rely too heavily on McManus and that came at a price yesterday.

No team news?

Bad weekend all round for Antrim.

is the pulling of a faceguard a yellow or red card offence? I have noticed this year in club games it has been given as a yellow card offence however in intercounty games in previous years it has been a straight red

Its a red card, if seen by the ref

There's your problem! Thats very rarely seen by the people that matter unfortunately. It's very easy to say "I didn't see it"  If seen it most definitely isn't a yellow! IMO

Sure it wouldn't be like MR2 to be controversial on here 😂  the age old problem of "if you believe everything you read .....". There's always 3 sides.  Really sorry I missed the match now

Anyone at Dunloy/cushendall match tonight.  Didn't get to it myself.  See it was close enough.

Hard to take today.  And fair play to McManus for playing and to be honest they really would be in dire straights without him.

Any word on McManus?? And What was ref doing today  utter madness

Any team news for the weekend.  Is Graffin back yet?