Not many clubs in Cavan would have suffered from the loss of players like Shercock did last season, but to their credit they managed to weather the storm and will find themselves in the same position again in 2010.
A junior club competing in the ACFL Division Two, Shercock have tried to use their league status in recent years to provide the catalyst towards them winning their first junior football championship since 1979 and last year, despite the loss in numbers, they were gunning to get their hands on the Sean Leddy Cup 30 years on.
"Our aims for the year would have been to consolidate our position in Division Two and give the junior championship a good rattle," explained club chairman, Pierce McDermott.
"Unfortunately, we were without 13 of our players throughout the course of the year because of immigration and injury. We were lucky to stay in Division Two because we had lost so many of our main players."
Throughout 2009, Shercock had regularly missed the services of their midfield duo, Sean Magee and Michael Reilly, centre-forward Michael McEntee, John McDermott, Cathal O'Reilly and Liam Og O'Reilly, who had made the trip across the Atlantic in search of work in the US. Another blow to their season would be the loss of one of their minor stars during 2008, Ciaran McDermott, who had dislocated his shoulder during a game early on in the season.
Shercock got off to a the perfect start by handing Kill a 1-10 to 0-6 defeat at O'Hagan Park, but losses to Knockbride and Killinkere saw Michael Nulty's team fall into a downward spiral before registering a sweet victory at home to Cavan Gaels and earning a draw away to Drumlane in Milltown.
"We started alright in the first couple of games, but after Killinkere beat us we went downhill. If we hadn't have beaten Drung in our last game we would have went down," explained McDermott.
"We were a very depleted team and any team missing 13 players - all of which were under 26 - are going to suffer. Unemployment really devastated the team and they did well to retain their Division Two status in the end."
Shercock played Mountnugent in their junior championship opener at St Anne's Park in Bailieborough and battled for a draw in a game which McDermott believed the team should have won.
The next day out there was no disputing the final result, as Shercock were outplayed by eventual finalists Swanlinbar at Kingspan Breffni Park, where the full-time score read 1-15 to 1-7 in favour of Swad, which left the east Cavan men in need of a win from their final group game against newcomers Cavan Gaels if they were progress through to the quarter-finals.
Played at PJ Duke Park, Stradone, a young Shercock side put it up to a Gaels outfit with several senior championship winners in their ranks and in the end it was the Cavan town side's ability to pick off long range scores that proved the difference as they edged out Shercock by 0-15 to 3-4 to send them crashing out of the Cavan JFC.
The senior team's season didn't end there though. With three games remaining in the league, one win would be needed to insure that Shercock would be playing their league football in Division Two for 2010.
Narrow losses to Drumgoon and Ballyhaise looked to have spelled the end for Nulty's team, but a last day win against Drung made sure Shercock would stay in the second tier at the expense of second-string outfits, Cavan Gaels and Crosserlough.
With key players returning, minor stars coming through and the instalment of a new senior management team, headed by former Cavan minor boss Jody Clarke, the hopes from McDermott now are that Shercock can set out their stall to claim the junior championship silverware that has evaded them for too long now.
"We'd hope to take a step forward and give the junior championship a good go and consolidate our position in Division Two again in 2010. As well as that, we'll be wanting to defend our minor title with Killann Gaels, as only four of the team that started last year's final are overage this year," said the chairman.

Minors taste sweetest success
They say some people only recall the bad things, but 2009 will be remember by everyone involved with Shercock as the year Killann Gaels got their hands on the Cavan Minor Football Championship title.
"The minor championship win was definitely the highlight of the year for us," McDermott confirmed.
The Bailieborough/Shercock amalgamation, which was coached by Shane Lynch, Paddy Donnery, Pierce McDermott and Oliver Tierney, has been in existence for the last four years and finally delivered the much-coveted Division One Minor Football Championship crown to its two clubs on October 4th 2009, after victory over Ballyhaise in the final at Breffni Park.
Both clubs had started off on their own in the league, with Shercock representing themselves well in Division Three after one win, two losses and four draws. Over the course of that campaign Stephen Donnery, Shane Clarke, Damien McIntyre and Paul Crosby had all impressed.
When the championship began in August, the Killann Gaels management had their players well gelled together and tuned up for a tough opening game against competition favourites St Joseph's in Bailieborough.
"The championship started for us at the end of August and we played St Joseph's in the quarter-finals. They were the favourites and we beat them by a point in a terrific game of football," said McDermott, who was along the side-line at St Anne's Park.
"The second game was against Cavan Gaels and it was another thriller. Our goalkeeper Sean Farrelly made an unbelievable save at the end of that game that Shay Given wouldn't have made and we won it by two points to go through to the final."
After beating two of the top teams in the county, suddenly the attention turned towards the Bailieborough/Shercock combo as they went into the decider against Ballyhaise at Kingspan Breffni Park.
McDermott said: "I suppose there were big expectations on them and they could have been a bit nervous going into the game. They were very unlucky not to have won it the previous year and they wanted to put that right.
"The final was a good, tough game and we got on top early on. We went three points up at one stage and then they started to come back into it. James Fulton got Man of the Match and he scored a wonder goal. In fairness, they dug deep in that game and we told them before they went out just to play their usual game and don't be afraid to go for the scores.
"We put Conor Tierney on their danger man, who was Kevin Tierney, and Conor kept him out of the game," he added.
Killann Gaels emerged 1-9 to 1-6 winners to register the club's first ever Cavan MFC success, and you can be sure they won't look to stop at that.
Killann Gaels (MFC final v Ballyhaise): Sean Farrelly; Brian Sankey, Shane Clarke, Killian Clarke; Conor Cronin, Ciaran O'Reilly, Conor Tierney; Conor Gilsenan, Niall Comey; Damien McIntyre, Stephen Kearns, David Carolan; James Fulton (1-5, 2f), Niall Kelly (0-3), Stephen Donnery (0-1). Subs: Shane Kelly, Eoin O'Sullivan.

To no surprise, both towns organised memorable celebrations to help remember the team's achievement.
"We came back to Shercock first and we had a lorry with loudspeakers and there were between 300 and 400 people there to greet the team," said McDermott.
"We went back to Bailieborough and there were maybe even more people than that on the streets to greet them. We had a meal and afterwards a few of the lads rushed to get the bus back to Dublin for college.
"They are a great bunch of young lads that are very committed. I would have worked with a lot of them down the years and they are all well-mannered lads that want to achieve," he added.
The Killann Gaels players got their just rewards on February 19th of this year when they were presented their medals by former Cavan manager and Donegal legend Martin McHugh at the Bailie Hotel in Bailieborough.

Juveniles competing well
Elsewhere in the club, Shercock's other underage teams competed well throughout 2009, according to the club chairman, and during the season the club's first ladies team competed at Under 14 level.
"We had our first ever ladies Under 14 team in 2009. They played in the league and the Roisin McCluskey Cup and reached the final, where they were beaten by Drumgoon.
Our Under 14 boys won the Darren McCann Cup, beating Kingscourt in the final.
There was also an event held at O'Hagan Park - where the club hope to have a new stand constructed by this summer - to help mark both the 30th and 25th anniversarys of Shercock's last junior and intermediate championship wins, respectively. Both wins came against Knockbride and the two teams played out a challenge game in Shercock, followed by a barbeque and social night afterwards to celebrate the occasion.
The club made sure that they would be ending 2009 on a positive note, when Paddy O'Reilly was elected to a prominent county board role at the annual convention.
"The new minor board chairman Paddy O'Reilly is from Shercock and we had our secretary, Angela Hamilton, also going for two positions on the county board as well. Angela is a wonderful worker for this club and it's great to see Shercock making some inroads there because we're only a small club," the chairman concluded.
The signs are definitely promising. Tweet

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