Back amongst the big boys
December 30, 2010After plying their trade in the junior '2B' and junior '2A' championships for a few years, in a bid to get back on their feet, Wolfe Tones returned to the JFC in 2010. Even though they failed to make a major impression, the club is certainly in a much healthier state now than they were when they were forced to regroup in the middle of the decade. Around that time, the Tones looked to be in trouble of going to the wall, but they're now fielding for every match and they have some good young talent emerging. So there is plenty of cause for optimism.
Chairman Mickey Kelly reflects: "We entered the junior 1 championship for the first time in a few years and we ran Lannleire close. We're getting back into the swing of it and we have a lot of young lads coming through. In that first championship game against Dunleer, our oldest player was 25 and we had eight under 20s on the team. We'll go well in the future if we can hold onto those lads.
"We have definitely made progress since we opted out. Winning the junior 2b championship in 2008 was a big plus for the club because it gave the lads confidence and added to their desire to play gaelic football.
"We got some hidings in the league last year but we also ran some of the top teams in junior 1 close. I don't know what the reason is, but we always seemed to fade in the last ten minutes of matches. I'm sure we'll work that one out and we'll improve.
"I took charge of the lads for the Lannleire game because Paddy [Fanning, manager] was suspended and the lads gave a great response. It was touch and go throughout and with a little bit of luck, they could have won. If they'd won their first game in the championship, they could have done something. There's very little between success and failure and Wolfe Tones aren't all that far off the pace.
"Three or four of our players have won U14 'A', U16 'A' and minor 'B' championships coming through the underage ranks and they have experience of winning matches. John Kelly and Mark McKenna have played minor for Louth and we had a couple of lads on this year's county U17 squad - Owen Sewell is a fantastic little player. He was centre half back on the junior team this year and he was a revelation. And John Horan, who was also with the Louth U17s, is putting away some great scores. Unfortunately, he's tied to Shelbourne FC, but if he keeps at the gaelic football he will be a Louth senior one day."
Mickey says he is happy with the direction the club is headed in general, although he accepts that last year's team management expected more. It's precisely because of this attitude that the chairman is delighted to have men like Paddy Fanning in the club, though the Tones could do with a few more like-minded souls: "Trying to get mentors is a struggle. Most of us are over two or three teams at a time. We can always get a few lads who are happy to come in and lend a hand, but it's very difficult to get men who are prepared to pick a team. Those are the kind of lads we need, but the club is on the up. We have teams at minor, U16 and U14 levels going right down to the 12s, 11s, 10s and 9s, and people like Colm Keenan are doing great work at juvenile level. We're making progress and the challenge now is to keep it that way."
Wolfe Tones were in Group Four of the 2010 Louth JFC and they opened their account with a 2-14 to 0-12 defeat to Lannleire in Drogheda on Friday July 2nd. The side on duty for that one was: Keith Farrell; Owen Sewell, Graham Fanning, Ciaran Floody; Patrick Fanning, Robert Daly, Gary Delaney; Ivor Kelly, John Kelly (0-1); Darren Weldon (0-1), Philip Smith (0-1), Conor Brannigan (0-5); Danny Coyle (0-2), Mark Downey (0-1), Darren Rice. Subs: Derek Thornton, Liam Grimes (0-1), Neil Mallon, Kevin Bull, Gerard Holt.
St Nicholas proved too strong in the second group match a fortnight later and Stabannon took the bragging rights in the final group game at Dunleer on Thursday July 22nd. Wolfe Tones' championship campaign had opened and closed within the space of 20 days, but even by competing in the JFC proper they had made a significant step forward.
Long-serving clubman Paddy Fanning, who managed the first team alongside Shane Smith in 2010, was a little disappointed by the events of 2010. "We had made great progress by winning the junior '2B' championship two years ago and then playing junior '2A', but it felt like we slipped back this year after returning to junior proper. We had a major incident in mid-June when I had a head-rush and called the team off the pitch during a league game against Stabannon. The whole team was banned originally but that was then lifted and I got a six-month ban. That messed things up a bit but we weren't exactly flying before that either.
"The County Board decided to make the winter league a double league with home and away games and, while this looked good on paper and seemed like a good idea at the time, it didn't work out for us at all. We ended up losing five games inside two weeks and morale was
at a real low. We had no time to regroup or to discuss things or get our heads together. We were also affected by the re-emergence of the soccer leagues.
"Numbers were good for the first two or three months, when we had around 25 lads training, including two or three who had returned to the club after not playing for a while. Shane Smith came into the management team, with David Tully and Brendan O'Connell stepping aside after working with me for four years. It was great to have Shane on board and he came in with some fresh ideas and stirred things up a bit, but we lost our way around May. When you are playing six or seven times a month, you need to win two or three of those games to keep morale up.
"We had a total of 28 games this year. We knew that such a large number of games would either kill us or cure us. In the end, it killed us. There was a run of games there where we could easily have won four or five in a row, but we just couldn't consolidate ourselves on the field and the young team was probably lacking a little leadership. Hopefully we'll be stronger in that regard next year."
Does Paddy regret the incident that led to his suspension? "Absolutely. When it happened I though we would be called in on the Monday but we heard nothing for ten days and then were told that the whole team had been suspended. We then got a very fair hearing and I took full responsibility for the decision and I got six months while the players were reinstated. But they hadn't trained for three weeks and lost valuable ground just before the championship.
"It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. The referee was terrible for both teams and when he started to physically roar abuse at our captain I'd had enough and I called the lads off. It was a rash decision.
"A couple of minors came through towards the end of the season and that has given us renewed hope. Looking forward to 2011, we have to have a major overhaul of what we are at and the players will have to step up to the plate. We've served our time in the junior 2 and junior 'B' championships and now we have to compete in junior. We're hoping to change the backroom team, introducing a few new faces so that we can have a bigger impact from the line."
Wolfe Tones are still very much a work on progress; they deserve immense credit for the progress they've made over the past five years. Tweet
