By Niall Gartland

ANTRIM u-20 manager Colin Toal sees no reason to be pessimistic ahead of their forthcoming Ulster Championship campaign, which commences against Donegal next Wednesday night in Dunsilly.

The Saffrons have shipped a lot of heavy beatings at both minor and u-20 level in recent years, an obvious matter of concern for football folk in the county, but their new u-20 boss Colin Toal is expecting a competitive showing in their upcoming group stage matches.

Toal, a native of St Teresa’s in West Belfast, says they’ve put in the hard yards in recent months and hopes that will translate to positive results now that championship season has come around.

“It’s my first year, we were appointed in late November, we got up and running on the fourth of January, and we’ve a great backroom team, there’s six of us in.

“We’re really looking forward to it. We’ve worked hard and fair play to the players, they’ve really brought into what we’re trying to do.

“We’d like to think that at the very least we’ll be competitive, but we’re going out to win every game and we’re making no qualms about that.

Toal has trawled the club scene in the county in search of up and coming prospects, though it’s taken a fair bit of research on his part to suss out who is eligible for selection.

“We went and watched every single U-21 Football Championship game. The problem is that it’s u-21 at club level but we still got to every game and had a lot of consultation with club managers as well. We picked a big panel and have gradually reduced it, and I’m very happy with the effort of the lads so far.”

Toal has done good work in his role as manager of St Patrick’s Lisburn, an Intermediate club who finished third in Division Two last year. He also has prior experience of coaching at county level.

“I was involved with the minors in the Covid year – we lost to Monaghan. We had a great start in the Ulster Minor league, beating Armagh and Down, then Covid struck. We played Monaghan six months later than scheduled, and lost that game, but Covid was definitely disruptive.”