They drank warm beer from tins that day. It was in the old dressing-rooms, under the Hogan Stand, dark, claustrophobic little caverns where voices carry. They slugged back sweet, cheap beer and whooped at the thought of coming back in September. The Offaly boys, first team to be beaten by Ulster opposition in 46 years, shrugged good-naturedly and sort of took guest roles at the party.
Cardinal O Fiaich stepped in through the haze of steam and brought a moment's solemnity to the occasion. Manager Jim Nelson declared it the best day in Antrim's history.
"We became friendly with the Offaly boys around that time," remembers Paul McKillen, who played at midfield on the August Sunday 10 years ago when the Ulster champions finally made good on their promise, rattling 4-15 past Offaly.
"They were encouraging to us, appreciated that we had made a breakthrough. That has remained there since and we took great heart from it at the time."
For a few weeks, the hurling world sat up and took notice of Northern representatives who each summer travelled to Dublin to take beatings without complaint. The scorelines varied, but the result became an inevitability. In the late '80s, though, they began to threaten, pushing Kilkenny in an enthralling game in Drogheda in the 1987 semi-final.
"Aye, that was a great game. I think Danny McNaughton, God rest him, scored 2-4 that day. Harry Ryan from Kilkenny got something like the same. It was score for score, but they went away from us in the end. Same as '91 when DJ and Adrian Ronan took us back with goals when we were three points up."
The belief was that reaching the '89 All-Ireland final would lay a new foundation for Antrim hurling. In Dunloy and Cushendall, they draped the shop fronts in saffron and there was misty talk about the glens. Thousands went south, but a ravenous Tipperary destroyed them. Nicky English nailed 2-12 of a 4-24 total.
"I don't like to talk about it even now," says McKillen, who retired after last summer's quarter-final defeat against Offaly. "Maybe we got caught up in the hype, but I think a lot of us, me included, had nightmares. We just weren't in the game."
The scale of the defeat was sobering, even in the days afterwards when the team were soothed by a touching homecoming. Fact is Antrim haven't won in the championship outside Ulster since, but the story isn't so grim.
"We have fond memories of 1989, but I think two years later we were better equipped to play in an All-Ireland final. And in 1994, we won five league games and reached the play-offs. There have been bright moments," offers Jim Nelson, Antrim manager until 1995.
Ten years on, has the sport advanced or regressed?
"It's hard to say," responds McKillen. "Back when I started playing first, in the mid-'80s, there was this sense that heading down for the semi-final was like a day out. You know, a weekend away in the city more so than a competition we were there to win."
Even last year, Antrim ran out to meet an Offaly team apparently bored with the game and managed by a new guy with a super-hero name. It seemed like a good time to catch them. Again.
"Sure Offaly were just too good for us that day," exclaims last year's manager Sean McGuinness. "Last year was a freak anyway, we couldn't go training because of the Drumcree thing. And Antrim always has difficulty getting challenge games," he says.
"We prepared as well as we could, but we didn't really have the backing. Look, I'd love to be back in Croke Park on Sunday and in that dressing-room. But I couldn't stay on after watching the way some of my players were treated. I was sickened by it," he says.
As McGuinness sees it, no Antrim player will contemplate, let alone admit, pessimism at the prospect of the annual game in Croke Park. If they were to bow to statistics, they'd be finished long ago.
"Seamus Elliott is a fine coach and I know they'll be as well prepared as is possible. Antrim will go down there seeing this as a one-off game. People will write them off and understandably so. It won't deter them. You would hope that they can keep it tight going into the last period and then see what happens."
Although Antrim can point to the lack of competition within Ulster in mitigation to their lamentable Croke Park record, McGuinness feels that the county needs to go through a process of self-examination.
"This is the first year that the county board have produced a fixtures book. Hard to believe, but it's a step forward. We need to develop an underage structure in each of the clubs. That is why Dunloy are so dominant in the county after winning their first tile in 1989.
"There is great work being done now at under-12 level through the Ulster Council, but that needs to follow on. And Antrim needs a strong college base to promote the game. If we get that and a strong management team given time and backing, we'll improve. Otherwise, we could be in trouble," says McGuinness.
Terence "Sambo" McNaughton, perhaps the star most identified with those few euphoric weeks in 1989, is in no doubt as to how things stand now.
"Hurling's gone back here. There is no argument to that. I always thought we never capitalised on 1989 and the club structure now is not healthy for the game, with a couple of clubs so dominant. I'll go to the game on Sunday and, you know, if Offaly come out in one of their moods, you could see a shock on the cards. Otherwise, it'll be the same old story."
Little has changed in a decade, it would seem then. Except there's never beer in the dressing-room any more.
