AS defending Antrim champions, Cargin had reason to feel confident at the start of the 2020 season. They were bidding to win their third championship in-a-row and had a strong squad, stronger than any of the previous seasons.

Yet  after the close nature of the battles in 2019, when Lamh Dhearg, Portglenone, St John’s and Creggan had made bold bids to usurp Erin’s Own, they knew that it wasn’t going to be easy.

For Jamie Gribbin, one of the younger players on the squad, he was relaxed at the start of the year.

“I wasn’t really thinking about three in-a-row that early in the season. I was more thinking about getting a good start. If you start thinking about championship in January then your head could go.

“I was more looking at getting my fitness right and getting bulked up.”

They entered the Ulster Club League and didn’t do too well but they did see some younger players coming in.

“We had that minor team coming in, Sean O’Neill and Ronan Gribbin. We were thinking about how they were coming in.

“People don’t realise how many players can play in certain positions. There is competition for places. There are a lot of boys who can play half -forward and full-forward and you are always under pressure to play well.”

Gribbin said that he didn’t feel pressure but he said that he had to be aware that he had to stay on top of his fitness.

“You knew that if you didn’t play well you would be dropped. You had to be aware of that.”

When Covid-19 hit everything seemed to be up in air.

Gribbin said: “I remember sitting in May thinking that we weren’t going to have a season. I didn’t think it would happen.

“The management kept giving us running plans for March, April, May, to keep our fitness. They kept on top of us and fair play to them. If it had have been silent then a few boys would have did nothing, me included. But we kept in contact with each other to make sure people were keeping well.”

That challenge of staying fit in lockdown  that Cargin faced was the same for everyone.

For the management, that was something that added a layer of worry.

Manager Damian Cassidy said: “This is a typical thing for everyone. We had to be sure that we were fit enough to get over the line. I don’t think we were as fit as we had ever been in the past two years. We didn’t have the same amount of time this year. We were only coming back on June 29. We had one league game and then we were right into the round -robin of championship. That was the same for everyone of course, but it was hard to coordinate.

“I know that in comparison to last year we weren’t at the same level of our fitness. That was an underlying concern the whole way through the season right up to the final. If you come up against a team that had done something differently you might not have been ready. That was something that was always on my mind.”

So with that in mind, how did Cassidy and his management team handle that challenge?

“The one thing I have to say about the Cargin lads is that there is a real good culture about the lads in terms of how they look after themselves.

“A number of years ago clubs would land to start training in February, March and done nothing. That does not exist in Cargin. Players look after themselves.”

Jamie Gribbin gave an insight of what the team was like.

“The older boys are very good at bringing the younger boys in. When I came in I was able to chat away with the likes of Mick McCann. Even though some of those lads are older there is no separation. I think that is one thing that Damian and the management encouraged when they came in.

“I was 19 when I came in. But they gave me a platform. They have faith in you. That gives you belief. The older boys make you feel like you have been there for years. When younger boys can sometimes feel like they are out of place, a little bit. But they gave us a platform, and they do the same for every young by coming into the team.”

Putting the faith in the character of the players paid off, but Cassidy said that the issue of fitness was always something that he had to work for.

Cassidy explained that usually the Cargin team would have worked on particular session to boost their fitness but they weren’t able to do those sessions because their fixture schedule was so heavy.

They even had to play two extra games more than their competitors because of how the round-robin was set up.

“I remember we had a session on Tuesday and it was over in 30 minutes because we had a match on Sunday, a match on Tuesday and a match on Sunday. It was just a get together and warm-up and that was it. We couldn’t do anything. Those are the things that made it difficult.”

Yet having the extra matches was not entirely bad.

“I thought it actually helped us in the long run from the perspective of being able to use more players and assess more players, and allowing us to use more younger players. Sean O’Neill was the most obvious one. That was a positive. It created a competitive panel. We had our strongest panel this year, stronger than we had in the previous years.”

O’Neill was one of those. Mark Kelly, who had been an Irish League player, committed to playing for Cargin. He told Cassidy after Christmas that he wanted to get involved from the start. He played in every match. Kevin O’Boyle was back at full fitness.

“The Kevin O’Boyle I had heard about I had not seen. But this year, at full fitness, I saw that Kevin O’Boyle. So in terms there were three new players in the pot. So we had a strong panel and those extra games allowed us to generate the competition. That allowed our training sessions to be more competitive.”

Gribbin said that the news of the games started brought great excitement among the players.

The preparations for the first round -robin game were okay.

“We didn’t hit top form straight away. It is a credit to the management that we weren’t hitting top form at the start. We started not too bad, but by the time we hit knockout stages we were firing on all cylinders.

“I remember the first game coming on, as I was injured. I remember thinking where we were at compared to other teams. I was thinking that we had to start building. You soon began to realise that we had to build up.

“We played St John’s and we won and when we did that we knew that we weren’t in a bad position because St John’s are a good team. We knew we were decent but we had a lot more to give.”

The round-robin fixtures provided an opportunity for the team to test themselves.

Damian Cassidy said: “You don’t worry about the round-robins because you are always going to qualify. You just want to get games under your belt. We ended up with our last game being a dead-rubber because we had already topped our group.

“From the point of view of being top of the group, we had already achieved that. So there were no concerns.”

For Gribbin the Aghagallon game stood out as one that was a marker.

“We went into that game with a lot of injuries, Mick (McCann), Tomas (McCann), ‘Kobo’ (Kevin O’Boyle). I remember we came through it with younger boys. That gave us the platform. After that I thought that we were building quite well.”

That was the first round-robin game.

Another game that Jamie Gribbin felt showed their progress was the final round-robin game against St Brigid’s.

Gribbin said: “The game against St Brigid’s we won quite convincingly as well and that really showed us where we were at. We felt good after that.”

The competitive nature of their training sessions this season was highlighted by the journey of Enda McGrogan.

The manager Cassidy said: “Enda McGrogan was not featuring in the earlier stages.

“He had a hamstring injury. He was building a house. He came on as a sub in quarter-final. He didn’t feature in semi-final. But because of the competitiveness of the panel, there were five or six players who had been playing well regularly in those training games. Enda started the county final and that would have been unexpected to those who were outside of our training matches.”

Gribbin felt that Cassidy’s video sessions were always important.

“The sessions point out what we can improve on. We look at what to improve on and then go out on the training field and work on. Those video sessions have no holding back. If you are told you are in the wrong you are told you are in the wrong. It is constructive criticism, and we are big enough to know how to take them. We know that those video sessions are all about improving the team.”

The video sessions show the team how to improve and that can help the team get stronger and more competitive. They certainly prepared the team well for the championship proper.

Their first game in the knockout stages was against Rossa. The game stands out for Gribbin for one big reason.

“I remember that I wrecked my £100 boots. I think someone stood on me. I got them sent back and got the money for them. Rossa had been going well. We knew from the year before when Rossa gave us some game. They could have beat us. So we knew we had to be at 100 percent. They are a good side with all the underage success they are having.

“I can remember there was a big step up in our warm-up. It was intense. I was playing in the full-forward with Tomas. I think he scored 10 points in the first half and I didn’t do a pile. But what stood out for me was our tackling. That was something we focused on. Those turnovers gave us our platform to go on and get scores.”

They accounted for Rossa and then turned their attention to the semi-final on the following Saturday. That was the Lamh Dhearg game.

Cassidy said: “Lamh Dhearg was the one team that we would have seen, based on the previous two seasons, last year we had drawn and went to a replay, and the previous season we had drawn with them in the quarter-final and beat them in the replay.

“Based on that that was the one game you were going to have concerns about.”

Jamie Gribbin echoed that: “Any time you play Lamh Dhearg it is a battle. In 2018 we played them in the final and it went to the replay, and then we played them last year, and again this year.

“They have added players, and they are hard stopped because they have pace and they are very strong.”

Yet they were going into the game feeling confident. Creggan had won in the first game but the Cargin lads put that out of our head.

“We didn’t think about Creggan at all. We had to respect Lamh Dhearg. We weren’t over-confident. But if you are not confident that you can win then you aren’t going to. We had to be level headed.”

The game didn’t go to plan. They didn’t play well in first half and were two points behind.

Gribbin said: “We were sort of saying to ourselves, because of the water breaks we were taking it by 15 minutes. In the second half we were firing on all cylinders and got the goals.”

After they beat Lamh Dhearg, they then looked towards Creggan.

“The way the management have built the mentality in to us that we had to take it one game at a time. They don’t say it, they just do really well at focusing us. Mick said that we are a focused group, and we don’t look ahead. We have to nearly respect every team, because if you don’t then they can beat you.”

Gribbin said that they had work to do after the Lamh Dhearg. Tackling and ball skills had to be looked at.

“We knew we had to work hard because Creggan were flying. We knew that they were a good team.”

The build up in 2020 was very different for the Cargin team.

“The first year against Creggan was tough, there was so much made of it. It was a battle of flags, so many flags were going up. The game was terrible, five four, but that was because of the hype and tension.

“This year was different. No one was talking to us about it and that helped to relax us. It relaxed them as well. That played into the game as it was so high scoring.”

Ronan Gribben caught Covid-19 and that changed the preparations. But as Jamie Gribbin said they stayed focused.

He reckons that the game didn’t really go to plan, but they rarely do. It started well as they scored four in-a -row, but Creggan came roaring back with a string of scores.

Gribbin said: “The game didn’t really go to plan, we maybe didn’t think it went the way we wanted but we did win.”

Cassidy said of the final:  “We were playing top football this year.

“We maybe didn’t play as well as I would have liked in the final. There were things that we didn’t put into action that we wanted to, but that’s for another day. But we did win the match. We will look at those things going forward.”

The aftermath of the game, with such a small attendance made for an odd experience.

Yet Gribbin said it was not entirely negative.

“It gave us more time with the team. Usually you can only see fans, but we were able to celebrate more. We were actually able to go for a pint together.

“The celebrations that night were not like years previous. The whole of Toome would have been flooded. But the celebrations finished up early. It wasn’t bad, we were glad to get to win it.”

Cassidy said that the competitive nature of the squad  made this year the most difficult that he had experienced in terms of picking his best 15.

Cassidy said: “We introduced seven players into the county final, during the full-time and the extra-time. All of those seven players had played in the group stages and the quarter and semi-final. That is why those two extra games were important. We initially thought that those extra games would have allowed other teams to get an advantage. But it worked to our advantage because we used them to use other players. We played 22 players in the county final.”

Yet there is a frustration.

“This year we were best placed out of many years, because of strength of panel, and the lack of injuries, to give the Ulster Club Championship a real good crack. Last year we didn’t have two big players, Gerard McCann or Mick McCann. The first year we were riddled with injuries. We hadn’t got the opportunity to put the team together.”

Cassidy believes that the first two years taught Cargin lessons. They learnt how to scrap matches out in the first year. They had lost games before which were close.

“The typical example was the final against Cargin when we scored the winning point and then held the ball for 11 minutes. The players own admission was that they had not been able to do that before.”

Yet injuries undid them in 2018. And the same was the case last year.

Cassidy reckons that the panel is stronger now and he named the likes of Pat Shivers, Jamie Gribbin and minors like Sean O’Neill and Paudie McLaughlin, as examples of lads who really will strengthen the team.

Cassidy said: “We are in a good position if things are done well and the attitude remains.”

So what now for Cargin?

Cassidy said: “The standard of Antrim has certainly improved in the last few years. We are not at a place where St Gall’s were 1- years ago, winning All-Irelands. But I don’t think that Cargin have regressed. We are definitely a better team than we were two years ago. I still see our trajectory to improve. But the standard of Antrim football has improved certainly.

“But there is no such thing as an easy championship they just don’t exist.

“The easiest championship I can recall is in 1998 when I was playing for Bellaghy, but it wasn’t an easy championship.

“You might win games easy but you still have to prepare.”

The importance of the win was well put by Jamie Gribbin.

“This win was maybe  more important because it was three in-a-row. That had never been done before.

“ My da (Matthew) played in the 1999, 2000 team that never got over the line. We didn’t get over the again in 2017 when we were beaten by a better St John’s team.

“This year to get back to the chance of winning three in a row was important.

“I remember in the week after it just felt special. There was the Covid, and bringing a bit of happiness to the club. On top of that winning the three in a row.

“It was special year for the club, and maybe special for the older boys, for the lads who had been beat in a lot of finals.”