McEneaney leaves his mark
December 30, 2009Eamonn McEneaney leaves Louth with his head held high. After all, four cups in four years in the coinage of Wee County football isn't a bad haul.
At the beginning of '09, Louth were one of the country's form teams, sauntering to O'Byrne Cup success with brisk precision and no little intent.
By the end of the past year, the record books would show that Dublin captured three of the four major prizes on offer in Leinster football. Louth bagged the other one. No mean boast.
Louth's success in winning the O'Byrne Cup for the first time since 1990 hinted at a new departure for the red and whites.
In 2008, the team had struggled to avoid relegation in the NFL before suffering summer drubbings by Dublin (Leinster SFC) and Tyrone (qualifiers). Cue some soul searching.
But after blitzing their way through Leinster and racking up big scores en route to their O'Byrne Cup success, the vista in '09 duly assumed less of a steepling peak about it and more of a gentle slope.
"Over the last four years we have won four trophies, albeit in various smaller competitions, but I believe that every team has to work towards winning the smaller prizes such as the O'Byrne Cup before they can hope to secure the bigger ones," McEneaney declares.
"In the same light, winning the Leinster junior championship (the county's first adult championship triumph in 43 years) should be used as a stepping stone by the county to continue the progress made to date."
And yet, even allowing for the county's triumphs in the O'Byrne Cup and Leinster junior championship, McEneaney feels his charges didn't reap the success their efforts over the past year demanded.
However after going into February still buzzing from their O'Byrne Cup success and impressing in wiping away the winter cobwebs, the county seniors were destined to suffer a summer of discontent after a spring of unfulfilled promise.
Three missed penalties were to cost Louth five points in division three of the NFL and, ultimately, promotion as they finished on six points (three victories over Limerick, Longford and Cavan) from their seven outings.
McEneaney admits that "the league was not good and we could have achieved more but we had little luck".
Nevertheless the long-term focus remained; out with the chaff etc.
"Our target in 2009 was to contribute to the gradual introduction of young players and to blood them in the league and the championship," McEneaney points out.
"That transition period went well enough and we were lucky enough to win the O'Byrne Cup in the process and while it is difficult to carry on that process and still win matches, we felt it had to be done.
"We were using the lads in preparation too for the Leinster juniors and eight of them were still under 21.
We were trying to build a team slowly but surely and the average age of the squad is now 23 or 24; the team captain Paddy Keenan is only 24.
"A lot of those we brough in were able to put pressure on the older lads and so competition for places was pretty good.
"We felt we had not been in a position previously to win something so it was time to get in the right players with the right attitude and take it from there."
McEneaney says he took into account "a lot of considerations, including mainly the interests of my family" before deciding to quit Louth.
He expresses himself grateful for the support rendered to him by in the wake of his resignation by the players and has no regrets.
"There was a lot of soul-searching before I came to the point where I felt it was the right decision," the Castleblayney native explains.
"We had made progress but there were other circumstances along with my family which helped me arrive at the decision I made.
"I gave it my best shot. I gave the job 110% and that's all you can do. I had a great management team around me and everyone worked very hard.
"I couldn't have asked for anymore from the players than I got and commitment was never a problem and the mood in the dressing-room was always good.
"I think we succeeded in raising the profile of the county over the past four years and introduced a new sense of professionalism to the county scene.
"There's a good degree of talent in the county but I feel it'll take another three to four years before the current squad solidifies into a successful team.
"We hadn't the best of luck with injuries but missing penalties and losing our second and third games of the league by a point hurt us.
"A lot of it comes down to confidence but the division two league title has come the county's way, plus a Tommy Murphy Cup, the O'Byrne Cup and the Leinster junior and I'd like to think that sort of run of success could be carried on."
From his perspective, McEneaney believes the more exposure Louth footballers get to the big stage the more assured they will become.
Louth teams also need to become used to winning "the big time matches and Louth footballers are simply not used to that."
The former Ulster SFC medallist reckons that the Leinster wannabes have got to establish a foundation of successful underage teams if their premier team is to be able to mix it with the big boys on a regular basis.
"I wouldn't say Louth's lack of underage success has become a millstone around the county's neck," McEneaney proffers.
"But the lack of success at minor and under 21 levels over the years in Louth certainly makes it twice as difficult for any senior manager to source enough proven talent and to engender enough self-belief in his squad."
For all Louth's dearth of underage success, mid-May last saw the county's flagship team go into their Leinster SFC first round tie with Carlow in Parnell Park - the team's third championship visit to the north Dublin venue in three years - as raging hot favourites.
Carlow had never won a championship match in Dublin and that record was unaltered as Louth notched a 1-13 to 1-11 victory.
The Wee Countymen started well before being pegged back and going behind only to record an unanswered 1-3 with Raymond Finnegan goaling.
Some poor shooting thereafter meant that Louth held just a 1-5 to 0-5 lead at the interval but in a tit-for-tat second half the sending off of Carlow's Derek Hayden and the greater fitness of Louth conspired to ease the match favourites past the post in pole position.
Louth have struggled for a long time now to put back-to-back Leinster SFC victories together and the county failed to put that unhealthy statistic to bed in '09.
Thereafter a date with Laois on June 14th stood between Louth and a place in the senior provincial semi-finals for the first time in 11 years.
With ten of the side that ran Cork to within two points in the final round of the All-Ireland Qualifiers two years ago on their starter's orders, Louth seemed to have a lot going for themselves for their visit to Donnycarney.
However, sadly, the county found themselves 0-5 to 1-13 in arrears after 47 minutes, having trailed by 0-4 to 1-9 at the interval.
Slowly but surely Louth began to reel in their opponents and after two goal attempts were blocked by Laois defenders, Aaron Hoey made it third time lucky 20 minutes from time.
The rest of Laois' afternoon was spent fire-fighting but once Adrian Reid failed to get a penalty award when blatantly pushed in the back, it was obvious the Gods were not on Louth's side and Laois held out for a 1-15 to 1-11 victory.
"It (penalty award) was conclusive," McEneaney says. "Even the Laois boys admitted it was a penalty when they were coming into the dressing-rooms.
"Those are the breaks. We missed a few goal chances as well but then Laois did too. In fairness I think they were more up for it on the day.
"Allowing them to build up such an early lead killed us even though we got it back to three points at one stage."
The team's subsequent 1-12 to 2-10 defeat in Drogheda to Tipperary in the first round of the qualifiers left McEneaney considering his options.
The loss was particularly galling to him, he admits, as his side dominated the kick-out stakes 15-4 in the first half and 31-13 overall and conceded just 1-2 to the Munster men in the second half.
Shorn of the talents of the suspended Darren Clarke - who scored 1-5 in the teams' NFL clash the previous March - and then having to make do without Aaron Hoey for all but two minutes of the second half, Louth simply couldn't muster enough of a cutting edge to reel in the Midlanders.
The following Wednesday the sheer disappointment of exiting the SFC was tempered somewhat by the annexation of the Leinster JFC crown when Louth beat Longford in their replayed encounter.
"The juniors did well. They beat Dublin, after extra-time, for the very first time and a good few of them are likely to add to the senior cause in the next couple of years.
"The county has been engaged in a rebuilding process but ultimately it's about building a winning pedigree in the county and trying to give players the confidence and self-belief necessary to mix it with the heavy-hitters.
"Hopefully the couple of trophies we landed in 2009 will go some way towards Louth achieving that objective." Tweet
