With a tremendous late surge in Division 2A of the 2004 all-county league, Oliver Plunketts booked their return to senior football. An emphatic victory over intermediate double-winners Dreadnots on Sunday October 31st confirmed that senior football would be returning to Drogheda's Slane Road for the first time since 1991, much to the obvious delight of team captain Aonghus O hEochaidh and everybody else associated with the Mell club. Oliver Plunketts' 2004 intermediate championship bid was derailed at Dunleer on the night of Friday August 27. Up until that nightmare quarter-final against Naomh Fionnbarra, the Mell men's IFC campaign had been following script and promotion to senior ranks via the championship seemed a distinct possibility. Thus, the nature of their elimination was difficult to fathom. The heavy defeat suffered at the hands of Naomh Fionnbarra was bizarre, to say the least. But, significantly, the Plunketts would have the last laugh, clinching promotion via the league - at the expense of the Togher men. Oliver Plunketts built up a real head of steam in the league, stringing together some superb results to take the runners-up spot - and promotion - with a late, late show. It all went down to the wire, the last day of the season. Plunketts and the Finbarrs were tied on twelve points apiece, with Dreadnots already having completed a league and championship double. It was Halloween. High noon. Plunketts faced the division's top team, while Naomh Fionnbarra were up against relegation-threatened Hunterstown Rovers. The Togher men had been in freefall since their championship semi-final defeat and they were unable to arrest the slide, falling to a six-point defeat. Thus, Oliver Plunketts' fate was in their own hands and they duly completed the job with an emphatic 3-12 to 1-7 victory. The celebrations could commence. After a frustrating 13-year absence, the Plunketts were returning to senior level. The close shaves and near misses could now be forgotten. The Plunketts responded to their championship exit in the best possible fashion. They were in a rich vein of form in the league and they carried that through to the season's climax, seeing out their programme with great wins over Naomh Fionnbarra and Dreadnots. Having won only two of their first six league games, the Plunketts stepped up the pace in the second half of the league, winning all six of their return matches. Even the controversial awarding of two points to Hunterstown Rovers after an objection failed to halt the Plunketts in their tracks. Perennially shortlisted as potential intermediate football champions, Oliver Plunketts flattered to deceive in the main competition in 2004. Having negotiated the group stage of the competition with a minimum of fuss, the 2003 runners-up took their place in the quarter-finals. Naomh Fionnbarra provided the opposition and a close tussle was anticipated. However, such an eventuality did not materialise. Instead, the Togher men tore Plunketts to shreds, slamming home four goals and winning by a whopping fifteen points. From an Oliver Plunketts perspective, the 4-11 to 0-8 defeat came as both a shock and a disappointment. In football, there's just no accounting for unpredictability. Nobody was more frustrated than wing back Aonghus O hEochaidh, club captain for 2004: "It was a sickening defeat and it came from nowhere. We'd been playing well in the build-up to the game and our league form was good. I really don't know what happened. We just never performed. "Sometimes three or four players have an off day and it can prove costly, but this was a real freak - all 18 players, including the three subs who came on, under-performed and nothing went right for us. At the same time, everything Togher hit seemed to go over the bar or into the net. "Fortunately, we managed to put that defeat behind us and we held ourselves together in the league. We never lost a game in the second half of the league and we were delighted with how things worked out in the end." Great credit is due to the Plunketts for the way they got their season right back on track following a shaky start. They lost their opening two league games and were also beaten in Rounds Five and Six. The heavy championship quarter-final defeat would have finished off a lesser team, but Oliver Plunketts were not prepared to give up the ghost. They were drawn in Group C of the 2004 Louth intermediate football championship. Dreadnots, Geraldines and Westerns completed the group. While it clearly wouldn't be a stroll in the park, Plunketts were fancied to progress to the business end of the competition by virtue of a 'Top Two' finish. And so it came to pass: the Maroons advanced to the quarter-finals at Group C runners-up, albeit after a wobbly start. The beaten 2003 intermediate championship finalists began their 2004 campaign in disappointing fashion, losing their Group C opener to Dreadnots in Drogheda on May 28. There were four points between the teams at the final whistle, 1-11 to 1-7. Despite bossing the opening exchanges, it took Oliver Plunketts ten minutes to get off the mark through a Martin Connor free. Unbelievably, the town side only registered one more point in the first half and trailed by 1-5 to 0-2 at the short whistle. The Plunketts drew level within eight minutes of the restart, thanks to 1-3 inside three minutes, but Dreadnots got on top at midfield and went on to take the points. It was 'backs to the wall' time for the Plunketts, who had to win their remaining two games to retain any interest in the competition. They duly obliged with two excellent victories over Geraldines and Westerns. The Gers provided the opposition at Dromiskin on June 20 and, despite falling three points adrift inside the first quarter, the Slane Road men prevailed with seven points to spare, 1-14 to 1-7. The final group fixture was effectively an eliminator as high-flying surprise packets Westerns, who were at the top of Division 2B at the time, had pulled off a major upset by hammering Dreadnots in the second round of group games. Thus, the winners of the July 4 meeting at Ardee would earn passage to the knockouts. An early Martin Connor goal (after 13 minutes) settled Plunketts and John Moroney, Emmet Kelleher, Justin Byrne, Sean Og Walsh and John Kermath were also on target as they claimed an impressive 1-13 to 1-7 win. With four points apiece from three outings each, Dreadnots and Oliver Plunketts both emerged from the group to take their respective places in the quarter-finals. Alas, however, Plunketts' quarter-final meeting with Naomh Fionnbarra was most decisively NOT what the doctor ordered! Both teams had been in excellent form in the run-up to the game and a ding-dong affair was expected but Plunketts received a massive blow in the build-up when free-scoring corner forward Martin Connor was ruled out with a shoulder injury. The Maroons started fairly well but were never going to recover from the concession of 3-9 without reply either side of the break. 4-11 to 0-8 … it was a devastating defeat. The Plunketts had looked to be in trouble in the league at one stage, with Dreadnots and the Finbarrs leading the way in Division 2A and the Slane Road side threatened by the spectre of relegation at one stage! The Plunketts had to rally in the face of a relegation threat to climb up the table and had edged within three points of the leaders by mid-September. They could have been much closer, but had controversially been docked two points from their Round Eight defeat of Hunterstown Rovers, when the mid county side objected after the 'winners' had inadvertently used six substitutes. The County Board upheld the objection and Hunterstown were awarded the points, even though Plunketts had won the match emphatically, 3-12 to 0-8. The setback could have proved very costly. "It was very disappointing because losing those two points made things a lot more difficult. It left us with no room for error but, fortunately, we won the rest of our games and it made no difference," the 2004 captain notes. Ironically, Rovers did the Plunketts a favour when they beat Naomh Fionnbarra on the last day of the season… In hindsight, the championship exit was more of a blip than a disaster. The Maroons appeared to have salvaged their season and were almost freewheeling towards senior football at the time. Then the walls threatened to cave in… "Losing the championship opener to Clogherhead in May was our wake-up call. We'd also lost four of our first six league games and had backed ourselves into a corner. It was time to stand up and be counted. We went on a good run in the league, recording three or four impressive wins against the likes of the Geraldines and the Fechins. We also rescued our championship with victories over Geraldines and Westerns, so we went into the quarter-final in a rich vein of form." It could hardly have been going better, then? "That's how we felt," Aonghus agrees. "When we lost our first match in the championship we were second from bottom in the league. We had no choice only to raise our game and it was time to get our fingers out. From there, we'd won all our league and championship matches, all our challenges, and we also won the Kevins tournament and the Grogan Cup. "There was a great buzz in the club and, having reached a semi-final in 2002 and the final in 2003, we thought this was going to be it. "While the championship was a disappointment, our season was still a big success. We got promoted and that's all that really matters. At the start of the year, our target was promotion. Either way - league or championship. We got off to a bad start in the league, losing our first match to Hunterstown Rovers, and we were really on the back foot when we lost our second game, at home to the Geraldines. It wasn't an ideal start and it was only after Dreadnots beat us in the championship that we started to up our game. Suddenly, we were doing everything right and we were hitting 15 or 18 points per game. "Everything had fallen into place and we were on top of our game. Martin Connor (shoulder) and John Moroney (broken jaw), two of our best forwards, missed the quarter-final, but we still believed that the team we were putting out was good enough to progress." Beforehand, it was a hard game to call, between the two form teams in intermediate football. Anybody who suggested that 15 points would separate the teams could easily have found themselves modelling a shiny white straightjacket! Defeat - never mind the manner of it - was a difficult pill to swallow… Oliver Plunketts had been genuine contenders for promotion to senior ranks for the past five or six years, so the step-up is log overdue. Their strong finish to the season suggests that the team possesses plenty of spirit and character and if they can carry that form over into '05, then they could hold their own in the higher grade. Aonghus notes: "Our minors won the double in '03 and there was a real buzz in the club. About five of that minor team earned regular places on the first team - they had been involved before but this was the first time they became regulars. "We've had the same squad of players for three or four years now and, once we found our form, we gelled really well in 2004. After the slow start, we couldn't afford any more slip-ups. We put ourselves in a position where we had to win all our matches. We had some big wins in the league and, when we won, we won well. "Everyone expected a good, tight quarter-final but in fairness to Togher they went out and performed while we didn't play at all on the day. From the moment the ball was thrown in, we couldn't even put together a good five-minute spell. But we showed good character to keep going in the league." Matters were out of the Plunketts' hands. Naomh Fionnbarra were in a prime position to capture second place in Division 2A. However, when the Togher men lost their last three games, the Plunketts took full advantage to steal into the second promotion spot. Aonghus has been on the first team for eight years. He broke through in 1996, when the Mell outfit won a Division Three/minor championship double. A burning desire to play senior football fuelled Plunketts' dramatic late season surge in 2004: "The desire was there all year. This is what the whole club has been working towards - the players, mentors, committee and the underage section. The underage is going really well for us. We have three or four players with the Louth minor and U21s every year and have a steady supply of talent coming through. We'll keep plugging away. "Apart from Martin Crosbie, everyone else on the team is 26 or younger. With all the work that's been put in, we believe that now we've gone senior we can stay there. Our experiences have toughened us and we've learned a great deal. If we keep working hard, we'll get our rewards. We're a footballing side and senior football might suit us." Oliver Plunketts also won the Grogan Cup in 2004, beating St Fechins by 4-6 to 1-6 in the final under floodlights at Monasterboice on Saturday October 2. Four weeks later, they were a senior club! All's well that ends well. Oliver Plunketts for there in the end, and learned a few lessons along the way. The experience of 2004 should stand to them as they square up to the top teams in the Wee County in '05. Tweet

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