Loughgiel might have crept under the radar during the group stages of Antrim Senior Hurling Championship, but they were forced to show their hand when pitted against Rossa in Sunday’s quarter-final at Dunsilly.
As it transpired, the Shamrock’s class of 2022 can mix it with the best when Hugh McCann has close to a full panel to choose from.
Whether they’re able to go on and win the Volunteer Cup for the first time since 2016 remains to be seen and they’ll have to go through North Antrim rivals Cushendall to make it to the county final.
Read more: Antrim SHC: Lethal Loughgiel cut loose to rout Rossa
Yet, after Sunday’s impressive 16-point win over Rossa, McCann feels his side have momentum behind them and will relish another crack at their neighbours having lost to Cushendall by five points in the group stages.
“St John’s and Cushendall are two massive teams, those group games stood us in good stead,” said McCann.
“We played St Enda’s and had a good win and, with the reserve championship we started to build momentum.
“At the minute, we’ll take anybody and that’s being honest. Our confidence is high.
"Cushendall is our next game, a massive game and they’ve already beaten us in this year’s championship so we know what they’re going to bring.
"Hopefully, we are fairly injury-free and we’ll see how we are in two weeks. They (Cushendall) have a bit of an advantage because they didn’t play this week - I don’t know if that is an advantage or a disadvantage?
“When you put a performance in like that it builds more confidence within the group.”
Paul Boyle hit 2-4 with Shan McGrath scoring Loughgiel's other goal while James McNaughton also landed 0-8 for the Shamrocks.
With the exception of Antrim defender Damon McMullan (shoulder injury), McCann had a near full-strength squad to pick from at the weekend, but he acknowledged the same wasn’t the case for Sean Shannon.
The Rossa manager was without Stephen Beatty (suspended) and Michael Armstrong (cruciate injury) for the quarter-final clash with Adrian Kenneally only fit to make a cameo appearance for the last 15 minutes.
“I feel really sorry for Michael Armstrong - you don’t want that to happen to anybody,” said McCann.
“It is an awful injury and we’ve had a few of them in the past and it is hard to see the lads coming back from it.
“The two names weren’t mentioned in our team at all. We knew Rossa would bring 15 players here and that’s what we concentrated on.
“The rest of it was outside of our control. I feel sorry for them that they lost those two players, but we can only play what’s in front of us and that was 15 Rossa lads.”
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