HAD Antrim not reached the quarter-final it would have been a regressive step – that was the attitude of Saffron joint manager Paul McKillen.

The Saffrons reached the Intermediate final last season, and lost to Down who are now playing at senior level. Then this season they reached the Division Two final, but lost to Down. Last weekend, they beat Kildare to progress to the quarter-final stages where the team expected to be.

Joint manager McKillen, who takes the team along with Jim McKernan and Elaine Dowds, explained why he felt that way.

“If we had not reached the quarter-finals this year I would class that as a step back rather than a step forward in terms of what we achieved last year and this year. Even though we were in the toughest group, with Kilkenny and Cork.

“We had a good win against Kildare. All we can do is keep pushing them. Hopefully they turn up on the day. When they perform they are good and when they don’t they can be bad enough.

“We have very few bad performances this year, maybe that first half against Cork. Against Kildare we played some good camogie. We had some great scores and the support play was first class at times.”

Reaching the quarter-final stage proves that this Antrim team are going in the right direction in terms of their progress.

“They have come on leaps and bounds in the two years that we have been there.”

The Antrim team still believe that they can win the competition outright even though McKillen says the opposition is tougher than last year when they reached the final.

“All the teams are beatable, but we are beatable too. The six teams left in it, I would say five of them could win the competition. In all my time of watching camogie, Wexford, Cork, Galway and Kilkenny have always had good seconds teams. It was hard to get over them. There was no second teams in it last year. Very few firsts have won it before that.

“All we can do is keep pushing them on. If they get over the line then there is no telling where the team could get to if we add a few more players.”

Their opponents this weekend are Kerry. McKillen said that he does not know a lot about their opponents, barring that they have a strong forward line.

“They have had some good results and some poor ones. Derry beat them easily in the league.

“I would be a liar if I said that I wouldn’t be disappointed if we were beat this weekend. I think we got the best draw.”

The Antrim management team are waiting on word from Maeve Kelly and Amy Boyle with regards to their fitness. They will know before the weekend if they will be ready to play.

INJURED… Antrim are waiting to see if Maeve Kelly will be fit to play