Tougher times ahead but Bonnar is happy

GAELIC GAMES:WEXFORD MANAGER Colm Bonnar admitted that patience, perseverance and a strong mental attitude were attributes that saw them weather a potentially difficult second half at Wexford Park.

“Antrim won the toss and decided to play against the breeze, which showed they were going to set their stall out and try and keep us to a low score. We felt we hurled well in patches and sometimes when you play against the breeze it can help to open up a team; our style of play it does suit us.

“We kept the same team out that started the first half, didn’t make any changes, just a few positional switches. To be fair to the players they dug deep and started working harder, closing down Antrim lads. They were very, very sharp at the start, won a lot of breaking ball and put us under pressure.

“When we went four, five, six points up we could see Antrim started lobbing in a few (balls towards our goal); the goal or two at the end was the icing on the cake (for us).

“We had a positive enough start and scored 1-5 and they had maybe three attacks and out of that they would have scored 1-2. So they got a very good return against the breeze and it did put us under pressure and maybe sapped our confidence a bit.”

Bonnar knows that on Saturday week they face a challenge that will be light years removed from yesterday’s remit. “We know down the track Kilkenny are coming and they are going to be raging hot favourites. We know what is ahead of us but I think overall we are just happy to have got the win behind us.

“Antrim are a very sticky team and they nearly defeated Offaly in the first round last year and they showed later on when they went on and beat Dublin, so we were very worried about this game and we felt the home advantage would make a bit of a difference to us.”