AFTER a season that saw great highs but some frustrating lows, one member of the Antrim management knows best how the team should react.

Former county defender and Loughgiel All-Ireland club winning captain Johnny Campbell has experience of being able to bounce back from defeat. His career at club and county has seen him fight back from some of the toughest situations that a player is every likely to experience. He’s suffered strings of county final defeats, he’s been haunted by terrible mistakes made in games, and injury has put the fear into him. Yet during his playing career he has learnt that having confidence allows a player and teams to overcome anything.

Campbell started with the Loughgiel seniors in 1999 when he was 16, and the expectations were low as the club hadn’t won a senior county title in a decade.

He said: “We went through ordinary years where we weren’t competing for championships. For a club like ours, which had so much success, it was a barren spell.”

Campbell remembers his debut, he had been playing for the reserves but got dropped. However, a week later he was called in to play against Porteferry for the seniors

“They must have had some injuries. But lucky enough I did alright.”

He was coming onto a team that included Eoin McCloskey, Declan McKillop, who was on the Antrim 1989 squad, Sean Paul McKillop as well as Brendan McGarry and Aidan McCloskey.

“We had good hurlers but for one reason or another they weren’t getting over the line.”

Campbell said that he was very young at that stage and that meant that he was ‘carefree’.

“I remember training with the seniors before my debut. I had not really thought that I was going to make the senior team. My father is a mechanic and there was a fella in with him. He said to me while he was in with my father, ‘and you’ll be playing senior shortly’. There was something clicked with me and I thought that maybe I could do it. That focused me. I took more of a jump at it. That was just a loose comment by the fella but it gave me confidence.”

Campbell would become a leader on the team but in the early days he was just trying to do his best and try to become part of the team.

“I wouldn’t have been one of the leaders when I was growing up even though I was captain of minor teams. I wasn’t vocal, I wasn’t shouting in changing rooms. I would talk on the field. But I did listen to what the older players were saying.”

A big step in Campbell’s progress was becoming part of the Antrim senior county panel. He had played county minor and u-21 hurling.

He won two minor titles with Antrim. They went on to play in the All-Ireland series.

“I realised that everything was so quicker. They (southern counties) were eight or nine points ahead of us but I didn’t think we were that far away. We just lacked playing at that level regularly but it meant that we went off and looked at how we could work to get there.”

He joined the Antrim squad as an 18 year old. The team was coming back off the defeats to Derry in 2000 and 2001. So it was a time of transition for the county.

“There were some big leaders on that panel. There were fellas who helped me, Colm McGuckian was captain at the time. The way he went about things was class. He had time for everyone. He brought everyone with him. The like of DD Quinn, he is only two or three years older than me, but he was a massive help.”

The reaction to getting called up to Antrim was met with a level of surprise.

Campbell said: “I never expected to get there. I always had aspirations but I didn’t expect it. When I was asked to come on I jumped at it. I would encourage any young hurler to do it to this day.”

The issue he had was that he wasn’t big enough. He said he was ‘a bag of bones’.

He went back to his club and worked hard and the following year Dinny Cahill, the new manager, called Campbell back into the team.

“I got onto the league squads and got some minutes here and there. I remember Mickey Kettle saying to me for one of the league games, ‘you are really unlucky not to be starting.’ I thought that was a really great and honest of him to say that to a young fella. I was sort of vying for his position. It was good of him to say that. That gave me another bit of confidence to keep pressing.”

His first start for Antrim was the All-Ireland quarter-final against Tipperary. He was going out to mark Eoin Kelly, one of the best forwards in the country.

“It was all excitement. There were no nerves. I was really looking forward to that challenge. Later on in my career I might have been more apprehensive.”

The early exuberance came from being young, and being excited at achieving a goal that he had held ever since he was a child.

“I had always wanted to play for Antrim. My first day in Croke Park was when my father took there for Antrim’s game against Offaly in 1989, when I was seven. My memory is patchy but I remember all the goals. That was my first experience of Antrim hurling and I caught the bug. That helped to harness my ambition. It was something I always wanted to do.”

The relationship with Dinny Cahill was important as he learnt a lot from him. Campbell says that Cahill was good at working with players, which was important when working with new players like the young Loughgiel defender.

“If I was going through a tough period he was able to help me. He would chat to me and didn’t put me under pressure. He understood that the arm around the shoulder worked for me. I never felt any pressure. He was just trying to go skills.

“He was massive for the young fellas like me and Liam Watson who were young on the squad.”

Moving up to the senior level can be a challenge. While he knew a lot of the players having played minor and u-21, it helped that club team mates were on the squad. There was a lesson to be learnt there for Campbell.

“In later years I was mindful of that. I would have a word in young boys ear and try to be as helpful as I could. I did that because that had helped me when I started out.”

Settling into the Antrim team was also helped by a trip to New York in his first year.

“That was a great trip for me as a young boy. I got to know a lot of the older lads that I had grown up watching. There were some massive characters on that panel.”

The trips were partly about playing matches, but there was also a social element to them.

“We were going from training on Tuesday and Thursday and you were never really getting to properly know the fellas you hurl with. We went to living with each other. We got to talk to each others families and personal stuff. You got to see what make people tick. That definitely helped us grow as a team and I can really see the value in that.

“That develops a level of trust. For any sports team if you haven’t got that then you are not going to go far.”

The lesson he learned in those early years of his Antrim career was the same as when he was a minor, that playing the teams from the south was step up in challenge.

“It was a different ball game when we got out of Ulster. We were coming out of Ulster and going into a quarter-final but the step up was massive.”

The 2002 season was a stand out year for Campbell because it lifted his confidence. He didn’t get any real game time but then was named to play in the quarter-final against Tipperary.

“I wasn’t getting on the team that year but I kept pushing and pushing. That is something that I enjoy, that competition. Then to actually get on the team for what was the biggest day. We were beat unfortunately but to make the debut that was massive.”

The reaction from his family was important.

“I am lucky enough that I have a family that if you get too far ahead of yourself you are told to sit down and shut your mouth. They are very supportive and I am fortunate to have that. We support each other through good or bad, and we don’t get to far ahead of ourselves. We are pretty grounded, though I do remember the excitement in the house leading up to that game.”

However, the highs of the debut season was contrasted by a devastating year in 2003. Antrim won the Ulster title again and then went into the All-Ireland campaign and met Wexford.

“It was a game that we should have won. We were going in confident having played Tipperary in the previous year. I felt we could have beaten Wexford. I gave away a foul and Paul Codd rattled the net. Being honest it took me a while to get over that. I felt that it was the reason why we lost that game and it took me a long time to get over that.”

The incident is clear in his head.

“There was a ruck ball. I had a hold of a man’s jersey but it wouldn’t say it was massive. It was a soft enough foul. Codd duly stepped up and stuck it in the net. I still cringe when I think about. It is a what might have been situation. Wexford went on to draw with Cork.”

This incident is a turning point in his playing career. The incident taught him a lesson of how a player should handle defeat, and how to take responsibility for mistakes.

“At the time we were winning u-21 with the clubs. We were still successful. Yet it was an incident that affected me. I just didn’t know how to deal with it.”

His family support unit played their role. While they kept him grounded during his debut, they also knew what to do when he was low.

“When the shit hit the fan, nobody said anything. I knew where I was in my head. I knew I had ballsed up. They knew I was feeling that so they didn’t say anything. They knew I didn’t need to hear anything.”

There are lessons for other players to learn from the situation.

“What I did is not advisable. I sort of went into myself. I just work, and go to the wall, and try to better myself. But I didn’t chat and I kept things inside. If I had spoke to someone going up the road in the bus it would be better. If I had had a falling out with someone over it it would have been better. But I didn’t say anything. I let it eat me. I let it fester and that is not a good thing.

“I am a coach now, and I am coming from the other side. I can see the value of having the value of having a word in the ear with people to see how they are feeling. I am not putting anything on them. You just want to see how things are going. It is up to them if they want to chat to you, but you have to give them the opportunity to do so.”

In the aftermath of that season, Campbell saw how Dinny Cahill would manage the situation with words and actions.

“I lost my place on league teams a few times. Dinny said to me ‘I don’t need you to go out and mark Eoin Kelly or Shefflin to do you more harm’. It was good of him to do that, instead of me tearing myself up. I understood what he did and that came from a small conversation.

“I was able to get my place back for the later league and championship.”

Campbell back then was the sort of player who was frustrated at not taking part, but he would also put pressure on himself to do well and that could be counter productive.

“We were playing Tipperary in Thurles and I was going to be going out to mark Eoin Kelly again. I had put so much pressure on myself because I was going poorly. I had lost confidence in myself. He (Dinny) explained that he didn’t need to put me out against a top forward in your frame of mind. I was massively frustrated because I wanted to play every game. I always tried to play them. I was watching the game and 10 minutes into the game Eoin Kelly had scored 2-5 or something. I thought to myself that he had done me a favour.

“That was maybe one of the things that helped kick me back into a bit of form. It also created a bit of trust between myself and Dinny. He had my best interests at heart.”

Campbell said that that incident, and his recovery from it, was an important period in his career. He said that it helped him deal with future losses, and there would be many.

In 2003 the Loughgiel team would lose the county final, the first of six county final defeats. But he was ready for them.

“While they would eat me, I was able to handle them. I was able to talk to players.”

There was also the benefit of being able to compartmentalise defeat. After losing in the Antrim Championship, Campbell could put it behind him because he knew that a few weeks later he’d be playing intercounty hurling.

“That is how I dealt with those county finals. They were every bit as bad as that loss to Wexford but that is how I dealt with it.”

One of those defeats that stands out is the loss in 2006 to Cushendall 2-14 to 2-7. They were eight points up and lost it.

“It is one of those results that you cringe and think ‘what do we have to do here?’”

Campbell understands how the team dealt with the defeat. He dealt with it thanks to what he had learned in 2003 and also because he knew county hurling would take his attention away from the loss. But were the defeats necessary to help them when winning came around? Campbell doesn’t think so.

“The way I think, we just didn’t hurl well enough in those games. We maybe weren’t close enough as a team. Maybe we were missing one or two players. All those wee things add up. I couldn’t say from year to year that I could put it down to one thing.”

In 2003 they lost to Dunloy by a point and they felt that that result would help them. It didn’t. In 2004 they lost to Rossa who beat them by seven. Cushendall beat them in ‘05, ‘06 and ‘08, and Dunloy defeated them in the ‘07 final.

Every year they thought it was going to be the one.

“It was different every year, different teams, different selections. Managers talked about going on buses. Then the next year we just went in cars. Everyone was trying something different hoping to get us over the line. It was just a case that we weren’t good enough on the day.”

Getting away from the club after those defeats was important, and the 2006 season provided a good example of how time away from defeat helped Campbell.

In 2006 Antrim got a trip to America because they had won the Christy Ring. New York had beaten Derry in the Ulster Championship so the trip was matched up with playing New York in the Ulster final at Canton Park in Boston. They spent nearly two weeks in America.

“I was coming off the back of the county final that we really screwed up. That trip helped me to get over that personally to a certain extent.”

“The trips to America were tricky though. It was often the first round of a championship match.

“It was touch and go. You weren’t just over there for a party. You had to be on your guard.”

During the mid noughties, when Antrim were playing in Division One, they were going out fighting for their lives and had to suffer the test of playing in relegation battles. They won a few, but it was a test for their resolve.

“It was satisfactory to stay up but we weren’t celebrating it. I don’t think it was something to celebrate. It just guaranteed that we’d be staying up for another year and playing the best the following year. That is massively important.”

Campbell felt that he remained competitive as a player throughout his Antirm career. However injuries caught up with him in 2009 when he broke his ankle. He broke it while jumping for a ball. He was able to get back from that but it was a sign that his body was starting to weaken.

“I had to work hard to get fitness back. I struggled with the ankle injury, Fergal Leonard with Antrim was a massive help with rehab and he did everything he could to get me back to fitness. We did alright that year but we were lacking consistency.”

They lost to Offaly in the championship in Parnell Park after extra time.

“That was a game we could and should have won. They took over on us in extra time. We gave it all.”

They went into the Qualifiers.

“We didn’t play very well. I remember playing Carlow and it took us a while to get into the game. We squeezed over the line.”

Campbell said that the previous defeat against Offaly, a match they knew they could have won, lifted the team’s confidence and that was bolstered when they played Carlow. So going into the match against Dublin the team were confident, and they would use that confidence to get a win.

“The game against Dublin was massive. That was my first championship win in Croke Park.I remember coming off the field to Dick McKeague. I remember saying to him ‘that was the best feeling I have had on a hurling pitch’, and so it was. It was massive.”

They went on to play Cork in the quarter-finals.

“For long periods in that game we were competitive. We conceded a soft goal and they won by nine. We probably could have won if we had had a small bit of belief in ourselves. But year to year we struggled with consistency.

“That year was maybe not the best team I have played with but there were some massive talents, Liam Watson, Shane McNaughton, Neil McManus, Karl Stewart. It was about getting it all click on the day.”

2010 was the breakthrough year for Loughgiel senior hurlers.

“For ourselves, what went before, we hadn’t been in a final since 1989, till 2003. Then for six years in a row we lost in the final. We missed a year when we got beat in the semi-final. Then it was 2010. The club went through a lot of heart ache.

“To get over the line in 2010 was mind blowing. You went through every emotion.

“During the game we got off to a flier. Cushendall came back. We were hanging in there, then we came strong at the end. It was a roller coaster to the end. There was relief and joy, Those scenes at the end were unforgettable. Someone said to me a couple of weeks back, they were chatting about the All-Ireland win. They said that it must have been the best. I said it was easy to say that but 2010 was the best. He couldn’t believe that, but that was how it felt for us.”

2010 set the ball rolling for Loughgiel. One championship was not enough, and they could have won an All-Ireland at their first attempt, but Loughlin Gaels put paid to that.

“We missed some goal chances but we weren’t far away.”

The club were going in the right direction under the guidance of Jim Nelson and PJ O’Mullan. Campbell certainly felt that was the case in regards to how they handled his injuries.

“I remember Jim telling me to do what I had to do. I was seeing a physio friend of his, Dan Turley, who was an amazing physio from Belfast. Jim knew that I was with him so he had total trust that I would do the rehab.”

An incident which highlights how Jim Nelson showed his ability to instill confidence in his players happened after Loughgiel had lost to Loughlin Gaels in 2011 in the All-Ireland semi-final. The ankle injury that Campbell had suffered in 2009, had been dealt with using straps during 2010, but the matter was coming to a head.

The Shamrocks had started the new league season in Antrim and Campbell had played those matches. Nelson called him in.

“He said to me ‘you know what I am going to say to you here’. I said, ‘am I dropped here?’

“He said that we want you to go for this operation. I said: “it is April now, if I am out for three or four months, I may not get my place back. I may not be worth one iota in the championship. I’ll never forget it, he looked at me dead in the eye, and he said ‘Johnny, we are for Croke Park.’

“I said: ‘Dead on, I’ll go on Friday and get the operation’. There was massive trust there both ways.”

The injuries though perhaps curtailed his career and they certainly helped him make up his mind to stop playing county.

“I maybe could have went on and hurled another year or two, would I have been fit to hurl for club, I am not so sure. Though I only hurled for four or five years.”

He thinks that injuries perhaps were a result of over effort.

“I never wanted to miss games. I think any player never wants to miss games. I can see as a coach where I have asked a player to tone it back. They will tell me that they are grand but I will say to them that in the long run it will be better for them to miss half a session, or to go and hit frees. That will be better for them in the long run. I can see myself in some of the players who just want to keep playing. They need a balance. I never had that.”

He got that balance from Jim Nelson

Getting the message from Nelson gave Campbell the confidence to believe.

Yet there were times when he wasn’t always sure.

He remembers after getting the operation, sitting in his living with his foot up in a chair, looking like he would never play again.

“My father came in and he looked at me. I suppose I had went through a hard time with injuries at that stage. He said to me ‘Johnny, do yourself a favour, go down to the bottom of that garden and throw your boots into the back field.’”

Yet Campbell trusted the Loughgiel management and they trusted him.

Jim Nelson in particular, had a great effect on the players and club of Loughgiel.

“Everyone knew who Jim Nelson was. He had a fair amount of respect before he ever came into the changing room. His demeanour, his chat gave you total trust. He allowed you to go and hurl and succeed. He was driven and that drove us. He was massively prepared. He was a damn good human being. He was good chat away from the hurling field. He didn’t bark too often, but when he did, your ears pricked.”

So that season gave them confidence, and Campbell pointed out too that Jim Nelson’s comments about ‘going to Croke Park’ also helped to focus minds.

“It wasn’t plain sailing, it didn’t just happen. We got a fright against Rossa in the Antrim Championship. We were behind against Cushendall in the final. It took a Liam Watson penalty to draw, and then we tacked on a few points.

“We got through Ulster alright. Then in the All-Ireland we played Na Piarsaigh and that was one of the stand out games of my career. To be involved in that day was massive.”

The game was a brilliant illustration of hurling. The two teams went toe to toe throughout. Loughgiel won the first half but Na Piarsaigh came back at them in the second period. It took a Kevin Downes score to draw the game level in normal time.

Campbell said that in the changing room after normal time the team were anxious, they felt that another chance was slipping away.

“Jim came in and said ‘keep quiet everyone. What are you panicking for? I told you that we trained for 80 minutes every time we trained. We are prepared for extra time. Go out now and do it.’ It was just that calming influence that we needed. We went out and we did it. We hurled and blew them away in extra time.”

So it was, in extra time, Loughgiel were dominant. In the aftermath, Na Piarsaigh forward Damien Quigley said that they were beaten by a superior team in the Shamrocks.

The work to prepare them for that game had been done many weeks before. Campbell recalled a meeting after the county final when the management and the team agreed that they should train for 80 minutes so that they would be ready for the eventuality of going to extra time.

“A manager wants to get his team ready for any situation so that they can be ready to deal with it. The hard work from county final to those games gave us the confidence to go out and express ourselves in extra time.”

The result lifted the mood, and the confidence carried over into the final against Offaly and Leinster Champions Coolderry.

“We had an unbelievable first half and that set us up for the game. We ran out winners.”

The club that had lost seven senior championship finals, had now become All-Ireland champions again. Those seven years of not getting over the line in Antrim were forgotten and the Shamrocks were a new team now. Campbell puts it down to the success two years earlier.

“The win in 2010 (the Antrim county final) had lifted so much off our backs. It made everything that small bit easier. We were playing with total freedom and were not worrying about what the outcome was going to be. We were hurling in the moment. The results came as a result.”

The success changed the mood in the club. Part of the club could remember the success of the ‘80s, but many couldn’t.

“Many of us who were growing up in the club didn’t remember that. 1989 was our last championship win. So getting to the later stage of the All-Ireland for three or four years created a buzz. It can’t overstated.”

Loughgiel would go on to win the county title in 2012 beating Dunloy in the last final to be played in Casement Park since it was closed.

They played St Thomas in the All-Ireland series, and the game went to extra time and a replay.

“That was a massive battle for us. Everyone saw Liam’s last-gasp free to draw. We should have had that game sorted out in normal time. That was one you cringe a small bit about. I feel that we could have beat Kilcormack which St Thomas’s did.”

Loughgiel defeated Cushendall in their best performance in 2013. But Campbell had decided to get a hernia operation before the Ulster final so he missed the game against Sleacht Néill.

“I remember watching that game and we were getting it tight and thinking had I made the right decision. But a few words from Jim made me feel okay about it.”

Unfortunately things would not be okay. He was able to return to action and was working on getting back up to fitness to be ready for the All-Ireland clash with Mount Leinster. However, he broke his wrist in a challenge game against the county.

“I don’t remember getting hit or anything. But 10 minutes after the game I remember saying to my wife, who was physio at the time, I asked her if she had any Ibuprofen as I had a pain in my wrist. An hour later I couldn’t move my wrist. I went and got it x-rayed. This was a broken wrist. That was three weeks before the Mount Leinster game. I never got back to that stage again. That was massively disappointing.”

Loughgiel lost out in Antrim in the 2014 championship, and missed out on five in a row.

“That was a serious disappointment because no one in the county had did five in a row. I probably should have pulled the pin that year. I was having bother with my hip. I was getting injections into it.”

The team got Paul Talty in as a strength and conditioning coach. He told Campbell that he felt he should still be part of the panel.

“He said ‘whether you leave the panel or you don’t, I want to leave you right. At the end of the day, you have a life ahead of you. You hopefully will have kids and you want to be fit to play football with them in the back garden.’ That was massive. So I came back for the 2015 season. I was getting jabs or whatever, but they ran out. Two weeks before the championship I had been playing freely before that. I remember when I got the jab, the doctor said it could last three weeks, three months, or a year. But it didn’t last long enough. The pain I was in that championship was brutal. We played Cushendall. The game when Liam Watson’s father took a heart attack. They were giving us the run around. I was playing. Liam’s father saved us that day. Which was surprising as it was a change from Liam saving us. We got a replay because the game was abandoned. I knew from that stage the game was up.”

Campbell explained that the sensible decision was to end his career at that point.

“As much as I didn’t like it I knew it was the right decision.

“At the time it was easy for me to retire. The body was sore.”

Not playing is a challenge but he maintains connection to the game in management

“You do miss playing. I went from there into management side of things, so I am still around training, but you miss the competitive nature of it.

“Management is good but it is not the same as playing. It is not a replacement for playing. I don’t know if it is a natural progression or not. It is the next step.”

Campbell was manager of Loughgiel for a few seasons, and has stepped up to join Darren Gleeson’s Antrim management team. His experiences of playing and battling through adversity make him an important member of the team. But he can also carry lessons learned from the likes of Jim Nelson and Dinny Cahill into the role.

The role, as he sees it, is about giving confidence to the players, in the same way that he was inspired and supported during his career.

“It is something I have always enjoyed. I enjoyed it as a player figuring out how you can do things better, as an individual and collectively. It is something that I try to bring into the players now. Some days it works out and some days it doesn’t.

“I am thoroughly enjoying being part of the Antrim management. It has been disruptive with the Covid-19 situation. But we have been somewhat successful. It didn’t pan out with regards our early success. We were relegated back to Joe McDonagh. But there are a good squad of players there. They are all willing to learn.”

He says that he can see the confidence growing within the players and within the county.

“Even this last year we had a couple of good results. Even to see the young lads when we beat Clare I saw the buzz it creates. If it can bring a couple of players then that would be great.

“People love the hurling up here. We just need to get the consistency from match to match. We need to keep improving and see where it takes.”

As long as they have confidence and believe, then they can achieve as much as Campbell did.