IT WON''T match the level of disappointment experienced leaving Ballybofey this time last year but nonetheless, it was a very frustrating journey home from Belfast with at least one point lost, if not two, after a controversial decision was awarded against Sligo deep in injury time, which provided Antrim with a free kick to win the game.

As Sligo defended what looked like Antrim's last chance and started to push forward to look for the winner themselves, the referee in my opinion made a mistake and penalised Charlie Harrison for an illegal hand pass, to hand the opportunity to 'man of the match' Tomas Mccann to kick from 46 metres out for the winner, which he duly obliged.

I couldn't categorically say that Sligo deserved to win this game but I felt on their second half performance they certainly didn't deserve to lose it. Antrim defiantly played the better football in the first half up to a point, but were extremely wasteful in the final third snatching at a number of opportunities and shooting from ambitious positions. Antrim lead by one point at half time but it could have been worse for Sligo only for Antrim's wastefulness in front of goal with a number of shots dropping short in addition to their high wide count in the opening period. The Sligo management would have been very disappointed with most of the first half characteristics of their play, however, i'm sure they were happy at the position they found themselves, with only the minimum between the sides at the interval.

In a half where Sligo seemed to dominate the possession stakes from kick outs with Eugene Mullen doing particularly well, however, there was way too many turnovers with a lot of misdirected balls into the full forward line in the opening period. Credit needs to go to Antrim in this 'turnover category' as they focussed on eliminating the usual Sligo threat of running the ball from defence by putting a lot of pressure on the Sligo defenders when in possession. In addition to this I felt there was not enough support for the man on the ball which forced many long speculative balls which didn't give us any advantage.

Sligo came out a different side for the second period and started to do the simple things better by retaining the ball well with improved composure when dominating the first 20 minutes of the second half and turned the one point deficit into what looked like a game winning lead of three points, as Antrim hardly crossed the half way line during this period.

Unfortunately in the space of three minutes after this, Antrim was back level as the first half failings were replicated with a number of misplaced passes which handed the initiative back to the northern county.

In a 'tit for tat' final ten minutes it looked like Colm Mcgee was going to have the final say to level the match and bring a point back down the motorway, until that controversial decision intervened. From a positive point of view Eugene Mullen did very well in the possession stakes at midfield and Ross Donavan had his usual assured performance while up front Adrian Marren had a good first half. Colm Mcgee who some felt was a surprise exclusion from the starting team made a big statement on his introduction in the second half, scoring two good points from play in addition to a long range free kick which levelled the game.

Personally I'd like to see Brendan Egan in a wing forward position with the licence to drift and help out the defence when the opposition are in possession as he has high energy levels and can link defence with attack very well. While he had an outstanding year for his club at midfield I don't think he feels comfortable himself at midfield at county level and can be better utilised if not in the half forward line position certainly in one of the half back slots.

When we've lost to Antrim in the early rounds of the league we bounced back to secure promotion and defeated Antrim in both finals, which demonstrates this result while disappointing is not critical to our division three prospects. When Sligo got promoted from this division two seasons ago, ten points with superior scoring averages was sufficient and last year Louth went up with only eight points.

That said from a confidence point of view next's weekends game against Wexford is important and I'm pleased we're playing them in Markievicz rather than Wexford Park where they have a formidable record.

Confidence is everything in sport and I feel a win next Sunday can ignite Sligo's season.

- Tommy BREHENY