Antrim joint hurling boss Dominic McKinley believes yesterday's close call against Down in the Ulster SHC final at Casement Park will help focus Saffron minds ahead of next weekend's All Ireland qualifier against Laois.

Antrim went into yesterday's provincial final as hot favourites having won the Liam Harvey Cup every year since 2002, but they needed three late points to edge a 3-20 to 4-15 victory over their old rivals.

“We were a bit up and down. I thought we were in control in the first half and probably should have been a bit further ahead, I thought Joey (Scullion) and Shane (McNaughton) were causing them major problems inside but at the start of the second half we gave away a bad goal and from then on they started to rain in high balls,” said McKinley.

“The disappointing thing is that we found it very hard to deal with them. To be fair to our players they showed a great deal of character to pull the match round, they were on the back foot. There was a bit of a hangover from the Dublin game and the players also find it hard to get up for it — this is the eighth time in a row we've won it — and maybe it's a good lesson going into next week.

“We'll look forward to the Laois match, it is a very, very important game for us. Our Liam McCarthy Cup status is at stake and we'll be meeting this week to stress just how important that is.”

Antrim coasted to a seven-point lead with early goals from McNaughton and Scullion, and took a six-point cushion, 2-9 to 0-9, into the break. But eight minutes into the second half, the sides were level with three quickfire goals from Paul Braniff (two) and Stephen

Clarke. McNaughton bagged a second goal for Antrim and an Andy Savage major had the game back in the melting pot but late points from Karl McKeegan, Neil McManus and McNaughton sealed the win for Antrim.

Down must now lift themselves for the Christy Ring Cup final against Carlow in two weeks' time at Croke Park.

“We started well, we were sharp, made two mistakes, they scored two goals which put us on the back foot but we said we'll hang in there because we knew we were going to win the second half,” said Down manager Jim McKernan. “We knew we were going to finish the stronger because we're a fit team, a focused team and the ability is there, it just slipped away.”

But the game will bring the team on, hopefully we'll be alright with injuries. We'll regroup, there's bigger fish to fry. It's nice to win all your matches, we were going for number six (in a row) but it wasn't to be — but it wasn't through lack of effort from the squad.

“We'll dust ourselves down and regroup. There's only one thing on our minds — the Christy Ring final.”