Hurling - Difficult league opener for Derry’s hurlers

Difficult league opener for Derry’s hurlers

By Steven Doherty

DERRY hurlers face a formidable foe in their opening National League fixture when they play Antrim this on Sunday. The Oakleaf county narrowly lost out on a promotion play-off last year after defeat to Wicklow, but manager Tom McLean is looking no further ahead than this weekend’s difficult looking first game against a side now under the guiding eye of new manager PJ O’Mullan. “Aye, we’re set to go” he told the County Derry Post. “It’s a tough opener for us, you know. They have new management in and they will all be out to impress them. Antrim’s only out of 1B and they are probably just that bit ahead of the rest. They’ll be looking to get the business done and get back up into Division 1B again. I suppose we have nothing to lose – we’ll just go out and give it our best shot. “Antrim is one of the teams that you have to judge yourself against and it will give you a good idea as to where we are at. The first three games we have there is nothing handy about any of them – Antrim, Westmeath and Carlow.” The 2016 Derry team will have a marked difference to the one that made its way to Croke Park for the Christy Ring final last season, with the retirement of stalwarts Kevin and Liam Hinphey and Ruairi McCloskey. “We lost a few but we’ve a few back” explained McLean. “Paddy Kelly’s back, Oisin and Darragh McCloskey are both back and Shane Farren. We’ve three new additions from Slaughtneil which we are delighted about – Mark McGuigan, Meehaul McGrath and Gareth O’Kane. And we’re glad to have them on board. That’s a good wee boost.” McLean also expects Ciaran Gaile, Anton Rafferty, Ruaidhri Leonard and Thomas Magee all to bolster his squad ‘in the near future’ after their recent heroics with Eoghan Rua. “My ambition for Derry would be to hold our position in 2A. That will probably test us enough in the meantime. To be honest I’ll not be looking any further than the game on Sunday. That’s the way we approached it last year. We took it one match at a time to see where it brought us.” NHL Div 2A Derry v Antrim Sunday, 2pm Celtic Park