Brave bid for back-to-back championships
March 01, 2010As junior champs from the previous year (the club's first championship silverware in 28 years), Drung entered the IFC with one clear objective: win it. That was their goal, pure and simple. Having set their stall out, they recovered from an early group stage defeat to Bailieboro (1-9 to 0-9) to emerge from their section with three straight wins over Drumgoon (0-9 to 0-8 at Breffni Park in late July), Ballymachugh (2-7 to 1-5) and Drumgoon again (2-11 to 1-10 in a play-off). This was enough to clinch a spot in the knockout phase and Drung maintained their interest in the competition with a 0-7 to 0-6 championship quarter-final defeat of Kill. This earned a place in the last four and the Dalcassians fancied their chances of turning over town rivals Cootehill to advance to the decider. Alas, for some reason, the biggest day of their year coincided with one of their most disappointing displays as Cootehill prevailed by 1-10 to 1-5.
Even though they had done well to hold their own all year and reach the semi-final stage of the IFC, Drung were still very disappointed that they didn't contest the decider itself. "We felt we could have done a bit better," confirms the team's dependable attacker Philip Monaghan. "Our target was to win the intermediate championship. We weren't happy to make up the numbers, we wanted to win back-to-back championship titles."
Philip himself was injured for the semi-final but the former county Vocational Schools star doesn't try to offer his own exclusion as any sort of excuse: "We just didn't perform at all. We had a real off day and it just didn't go for us. It was very disappointing because it was a game we felt we could win. We should have won it and I believe we'd have given Lavey a better game in the final. But we didn't deserve to get there…"
For the past two years, Crossmaglen man Joe Fitzpatrick has been at the Drung helm. Joe helped the team to their historic 2008 county JFC success. The Dalcassians had surrendered their intermediate status at the end of the previous season and the goal was to bounce straight back up. They achieved this and went into the 2009 campaign eyeing glory in the IFC, a success that would have completed a remarkable turnaround in the club's fortunes: from junior to senior in two seasons…
"Joe was in for the second year and we went all out for it again," Philip continues. "We tried our best to win the intermediate championship. Everything went smoothly, training went well and we had a good attitude in the clubhouse, but we just didn't turn up on the day of the semi-final. We were on course and it probably wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that one poor day ruined our whole season.
"We were going alright up as far as that semi-final defeat. We had beaten Drumgoon twice and we would have been a lot of people's favourites once we made it to the semi-finals. But it just didn't work out for us. The semi-final was a game to forget."
With county midfielder Ciaran Galligan pulling the strings at centrefield, as well as Cavan goalkeeper James Reilly and another county senior in Barry Watters, Drung certainly have no lack of individual class in their ranks. The panel also boasts a nice mix of youth and experience, ranging from aged 32 down as far as minors, and they have the experience of recent championship success in the JFC. Most of the ingredients are in place for a good run in the 2010 Cavan IFC, but the trick is to take as many positives from '09 as possible and put the experience to the best possible use in the coming months. With perhaps 10% extra, Drung could go all the way this time around.
"We'll try to get a bit more from training and also to get a bit tighter as a group," says Philip. "We know we're not too far away so now we have to add the finishing touches to our team. Michael Tynan is in as the new manager this year and that will give us a bit of a boost. Training and everything went very well last year under the previous manager, but we'll have a different approach this year and some fresh ideas, which will hopefully make a difference. If we get the full commitment from everybody again, we should go well again in 2010.
"We'll be aiming for the IFC again. If things go right and we have no unexpected setbacks, we should be up there at the top end, in the shake-up for silverware. Unfortunately, it looks like we could be set to lose one or two lads who could be going abroad. That wouldn't help our cause. At the moment, we don't know when they might be back, so we have to keep our fingers crossed on that one. We could certainly do without losing anybody. Ideally, we'd like to keep the panel together and give it another real shot next year."
One thing's for sure: Drung acquitted themselves a lot better in intermediate in 2009 than they did in 2007! With some silverware in the bag in the interim, they're now setting their sights on the top table. There's no reason why they can't emerge as genuine contenders for the 2010 Cavan intermediate football championship.
Long-serving attacker Philip Monaghan has been on the Drung first team for the best part of 14 seasons. At 28, he's just undergone an operation to repair cartilage and cruciate damage to his knee, but he reckons he'll be fit and raring to go in 2010. He and the rest of the Drung lads will be going all out to write a few more headlines. If they don't win the IFC, it certainly won't be for lack of effort.
The Drung side that beat Drumgoon at Breffni Park in the 2009 Cavan IFC in July was: James Reilly; Ronan Slowey, Finbar O'Reilly, Brendan Fay; Dan Fay, Ray Fay, Noel Hueston; Christopher Moore, Ciaran Galligan (0-1); Niall O'Rourke (0-3), Alan Curran (0-2), Michael McEntee (0-1, 1f); Patrick McEntee (0-2), Shane O'Rourke, Philip Monahan. Subs: Stephen Fay for Brendan Brady, Martin Reilly for Noel Hueston Tweet
