Manager Frank Fitzsimons has confirmed that Conor Burke, CJ McGourty and Kieran McGourty remain very much part of the Antrim senior football squad.

The St Gall's trio were omitted from the starting XV against Laois in O'Morre Park on Saturday afternoon after playing a club hurling match the previous night.

"This isn't a personal thing between me and the three lads. There was a stage on Saturday when both Conor and Kieran were for coming on," the Lamh Dhearg clubman tells The Belfast Telegraph.

"The two of them could have been used at any time, and I made that clear to them. Obviously, I don't think I could have started them. I have a big panel, and what am I telling the rest of the lads if I was starting somebody who played the night before the game?

"They are three top-class players, no doubt about it, and we will need them at training and they are in contention for selection for the Fermanagh game,

"We are a dual county and unfortunately it's the situation we are in. The County Board will tell you that both clubs arranged the game themselves. At the end of the day, everybody tried to get things sorted but it just didn't work. It didn't get sorted and that's the hand I was left with.

"But I am not blaming anybody. People might think I don't want to rubbish the county board or clubs. But it's one of those things. There is enough about Antrim airing their dirty laundry in public. It seems to be done all the time. Things go on in every county but it's not put out there all the time. People who are doing the knocking are the people who don't seem willing to help out clubs."

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