Even before the start, Armagh were keen to lay down a marker against Antrim with Ben Crealey charging into Marc Jordan as the teams broke from the parade.
The Saffrons were second best throughout last Saturday’s Ulster SFC preliminary round and suffered a nine-point defeat in the Box-It Athletic Grounds.
Antrim captain Peter Healy was on the receiving end of huge hits and sported a fat lip afterwards.
Read more: Aidan Forker defends Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney after “unfair” criticism
He admits Antrim were taken aback by Armagh’s physicality at times during Saturday’s contest and feels a host of missed chances playing with the wind in the first half cost them dearly.
“I think they (Armagh) played a good game, but we were six points down at half-time after playing with the wind. That was the big issue and we’d eight or nine wides in the first half,” said Healy.
“In a Championship game playing the likes of Armagh, you cannot afford to be six points down at half-time.
“I think we were much better in the second half and created a few goal chances and got it back to five at one stage.
“In fairness, whenever we scored our goal, they hit back with two or three scores to steady the ship.
“We are trying to bridge that gap year-on-year and we didn’t give as good a show of ourselves as we could.”
He added: “The physicality was a level above anything we faced this year and we didn’t match that. We settled into the game more in the second half, but we struggled in the first half playing with the wind.
“We knew if we were going to get anything out of the game, the first 10 or 15 minutes was really important.
“You could see in the first half, they were trying to show us down one way then trapping us. They got a lot of joy with that. We moved the ball a bit quicker in the second half.
“We expected a reaction from them and they’ll have been disappointed after being relegated from Division One. We didn’t take our chances to try and make a game of it.”
The task for Antrim now is to regroup and prepare for their forthcoming Tailteann Cup campaign.
After suffering a similarly one-sided defeat in Ulster to Cavan last season, Antrim, then managed by Enda McGinley, bowed out of the inaugural Tailteann Cup following a first round loss to Leitrim in Carrick-on-Shannon.
The second tier competition will be played as a round-robin this year and Healy says the Saffrons are determined to deliver a better showing in this year’s renewal.
“I think last year we didn’t really give it a go at all,” stated Healy.
“With this year, you’ve the round-robin as well and you’ve a couple of chances at it.
“We won’t be as slack this year and we’ll give it a good rattle. We’ll take a week off to shower the heads.
"We’ve about five weeks to get our heads down and prepare for it. We’re determined to get it a good rattle this year, absolutely. We’re looking forward to that challenge.”
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