Shane McNaughton has been mightily impressed by new Antrim manager Jerry Wallace.

The Cork man is pulling out all the stops in his bid to have the Saffrons ready for their May 19th Leinster SHC preliminary-round clash with Westmeath at Mullingar and, according to The Belfast Telegraph, Cushendall clubman McNaughton is particularly impressed by his coaching skills and meticulous preparation:

"He's an enthusiastic man so it's not hard to get enthusiastic whenever he's around. Everything is going well, it's going to plan, so we just have to sharpen it up in the next week before we meet Westmeath.

"He's introduced the running game more, the way he would have played it when he was with Cork. It's very tactical, he's always talking about tactics and he thinks that by the time you get to a county team, he shouldn't have to do any fitness. We are all men and we should be doing that ourselves, so he concentrates on the tactics.

"He's very clued into other teams, he knows any player you are coming up against.

"Antrim don't have many good ball-winners in the forwards and if you're going to hit high balls in, you need ball-winners in there, so that's how Jerry has changed it.

"Before when we sent in big high balls, we were just feeding off scraps. The ball was just bouncing off men, whereas now it's all about finding space and being smarter. He's brought that into my game and everybody else's game.

"You're actually thinking about it more. Instead of just making runs, you're making smart runs." Tweet

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