PERSPECTIVE prompts perspiration.

You might sweat because you’re nervous about a final – and also simply because you can, because you’re lucky enough to be fit to put that effort in.

Conal Cunning top-scored in the Antrim SHC Final with 0-10, leading Dunloy Cuchullains to a 1-19 to 1-13 victory over Cushendall.

Afterwards, on the day Irish sport learned of the tragically early death of star athlete and former camogie player Ciara Mageean, he revealed another source of inspiration for him and his team-mates: “It’s terrible when you hear that [about Ciara’s death] and it puts things into perspective as well.

“You’re going out, you’re playing a game that you’re enjoying and you’re thinking, you’re getting so nervous – and then you think ‘Oh, there’s people really struggling…’” Another example came even closer to home for Cunning: “Eunan Curry, a young man from Dunloy, was diagnosed with cancer there two three weeks ago.

See the way our village has come around him and how strong he’s been? It’s unbelievable.

“We talked about him before the game there and that is one of the things that we really strived for.

“Honestly, look - we think we’re in a pressure situation, but we’re not.

What that man’s doing is unbelievable.

You look at young boys like that, they’re 10 years younger than you, and they’re doing things to get over that.

“You just look to that and that inspired us today, to be honest.” Dunloy can never be accused of a lack of effort, with 10 of the side that started the county hurling final having also lined out in the football semi-final as they lost their crown to eventual new champions St Brigid’s – and Tom McFerran came off the bench for the hurlers on Sunday after playing for the footballers.

Corner-back Oran Quinn – who wasn’t on the football side – perhaps deployed soccer skill to kick the sliotar away when bottled up late on by a Cushendall attacker.

Football full-back Aaron Crawford, who man-marked Cushendall’s star forward Joseph McLaughlin in the hurling decider, deployed a rugby tackle to wrestle Neil McManus to the ground, with the former Antrim captain getting up to drive the subsequent free to the Dunloy net.

That was a rare defensive lapse from....