Mission accomplished
November 30, 2009Clann na nGael have followed the script to perfection so far in that they consolidated their senior status in their first year back, just 12 months ago, while the next step was taken this year when reaching the last eight for the first time since 1993.
For a whole 16 years to pass without such an esteemed club like the Athboy outfit not to reach the quarterfinals is mind boggling to say the least. Indeed, success at adult level has not been tasted since the early seventies when they won the last of their nine championships in 1972.
They are still regarded as a hurling stronghold and rightly so, for any club to win nine championships throughout their history is a monumental achievement. Nonetheless, they are a proud bunch in Athboy and no one will be content until the next title is annexed.
It is fair to say that the club are closer to bridging that gap now, than they have been for the past number of years. The work is certainly being done at underage level and although their under-16's suffered a heavy defeat to Kiltale in this year's county final, a number of those players are tipped for a bright future in the green and gold jersey.
The Royal County spoke to captain Pat Shore about this year's campaign and the Kilkenny native has high hopes that the side can build on this year's performances.
Former Westmeath hurler Alfie Devine took over from Frank Aughey as coach and once again the club took a chance as despite Devine's credentials as a player, he had little or no experience of management. But, to his credit, anm
Ex-players Kit Leavy and Paddy Foy were also part of the management team and the aim from the start of the year was to at least reach the quarter-final.
"We sat down and had a chat at the start of the year and we felt that reaching the quarter-finals was a realistic target. It was important to progress from last year. You simply can't rest on your laurels and just say that avoiding relegation is enough," stressed Pat.
"There are some excellent hurlers in this club and there is no reason why we can't go even further in the championship. That will certainly be the main for next year. We have a good blend of youth and experience, while there will be a few more lads coming through next year. It is important for them that we stay senior as they will develop quicker in the top flight.
"In previous years, we couldn't find any sort of consistency, we knew we were good enough to stay up, but for one reason or another, relegation became an almost regular event."
Drawn in a group alongside defending champions Kilmessan, Trim, Navan O'Mahony's, Gaeil Colmcille and Rathmolyon was no easy task as three of the sides lifted the Jubilee Cup in this decade.
Clann na nGael's cause was not helped by the fact that they were astonishingly placed in division two of the league, despite having won a play-off to stay in the top division the previous year. A senior club playing intermediate and indeed junior clubs was neither beneficial to the club or any of their opponents, leaving many questions to be asked, but never answered.
"Being in division two certainly didn't help our preparations for the championship, you need to be playing against the best sides in the county all the time and with no disrespect to the teams in the division, and it was no good to us. We felt aggrieved that we were there in the first place as we hadn't being relegated!"
The Athboy/Rathcairn amalgamation were handed the toughest test of all in the first round of matches as they were pitted against Kilmessan and the county champions delivered a fine performance to come away with a comfortable win.
"Things didn't go right against Kilmessan. I don't know if it was just the fact it was the first game or what, but we never got going against them. We played them last year in Boardsmill and ran them to three-points, so we were not fearful of them in anyway. I think we just put it down to an off day."
The second match saw the side pitted against a Kells side that they have encountered on many occasions in recent years, particularly in the intermediate ranks. Clann na nGael have more often that not proven to be too strong for the town team, but they certainly weren't taking them for granted.
And rightly so, as Gaeil Colmcille pushed them all they way in a fiery encounter that went down to the wire, but fortunately for the Clann, they were on the right side of the result.
With two points on the board, the threat of relegation was eased considerably and the side could now focus on their main target of reaching the last eight.
Trim were the next opponents and a win here would really have boosted confidence. Last year, Clann na nGael recorded their first win over the reds in many years and there was a belief in the camp that result could be repeated.
In a tense match played at Pairc Tailteann, the sides were evenly matched for long periods and were it not for two excellent saves by Vinny Doyle early in the match, Trim could have been out of sight. One failing that the side had throughout the year was their threat on front of goal. Apart from Daithi Geraghty, who was the side's top scorer during the campaign, the rest of the forwards, despite an excellent work rate were not producing the goods on front of goal and this proved detrimental in the Trim match as they came out on top by 1-11 to 0-11.
"That is certainly a game that we should have won. We had problems with scoring in some of the matches and this was one of them. Trim got a soft goal and that really killed us. It was a disappointing result, but we knew we had to lift it for the next game."
With two games to go in the group, it was still all to play for and the dream of reaching the knockout stages was still very much alive. Next up were Rathmolyon and although the Clann na nGael forwards had their critics in previous matches, they stepped up to the mark on this occasion.
Some over zealous tackles by the Rathmolyon players made it quite a tempestuous affair. Nonetheless, the green and golds concentrated on hurling and were rewarded with a 3-11 to 1-12 victory in what was arguably their best performance of the year.
"It was certainly a tough game. The forwards played very well that day and to win that match was a massive boost to everyone. We had to dig deep and thankfully we got the right result."
The last group match against O'Mahony's was all to play for as both sides were still in with a shout of progressing. Navan would have been quietly confident of beating Athboy and in fairness they would have been favourites.
Heart, spirit and determination are words not banded around too lightly, but they are three best used to describe Clann na nGael's performance on this occasion.
In conditions less than perfect for hurling they had to work hard for a narrow victory. Having played with a strong breeze in the first half, Devine's charges held a slender four-point lead at the interval.
O'Mahony's were expected to come out strong in the second period and that they did, but the Athboy defence led by Pat held firm. The performances of Declan O'Shea, Garry Mangan, Andrew McCormack, Gary Woods, Matthew Mullen and Barry Higgins that day epitmoised the spirit within the club. Despite, O'Mahony's possession, they could not convert their chances and a 1-7 to 0-9 win was recorded and a place in the quarter-finals secured.
"The performance against O'Mahony's was one of the highlights of the year. The backs played very well and in particular Deckie O'Shea, who improved hugely throughout the campaign. I think that performance really showed how far we have come, as in other years maybe we would have folded, but we showed great resilience to get through."
Clann na nGael went into unknown territory when they faced Kiltale in the last eight, but Pat revealed that they had nothing to fear going into the match.
"We were in good form going into the quarter-final having won the previous two matches. We knew that Kiltale could be beat, but a good performance was essential."
In an enthralling encounter, Clann na nGael really put it up to the 2007 champions before eventually going down by 2-17 to 2-13. There was a massive finish to the match when Goals from Brian McGovern and Daithi Geraghty put Kiltale under pressure, but they held on.
"You're never happy when you lose a match, but looking back at the overall picture and it was a good year. We have plenty to work on for next year and it is important that we move on from here."
For the love of the game
2009 was something of a curate's egg of a season for Clann Na nGael. Their Intermediate Championship campaign ultimately ended with a narrow victory over Castletown in a relegation play-off, but the ultimate goal at the beginning of the season - promotion to A League Division three - was attained. By David Sheehan.
Along with that success, was the emergence of clubman Shane McAnarney as a key member of the Meath panel. The 29 year-old carpenter has had quite a checkered career. Before representing Meath at senior level, the Athboy native had already represented New York and then London, and was part of the exiles side which almost pulled off a massive shock in the 2005 Connacht Championship, losing 1-08 to 0-12 to Roscommon - McAnarney himself getting the home side's goal in Ruislip.
It was towards the end of 2005 that the call came from Benny Reddy - who was part of recently appointed Meath manager Eamon Barry's backroom team - asking if McAnarney would be interested in returning home. It was something he didn't need to think twice about. "I always wanted to play for Meath, but it sometimes seemed that smaller clubs didn't get a look in. But after playing in London, someone must have spoken about me because the call came from Benny Reddy asking me to come home and I was delighted to get that call to be honest".
McAnarney was part of Barry's squad in 2006, slipped out of the reckoning during Colm Coyle's first season at the helm in 07, returning to the panel in 2008. However it was in 2009 that McAnarney really established himself as Eamonn O'Brien took over the reins. Widely regarded as one of Meath's best performers during the league, McAnarney was handed the number ten shirt for the Leinster Championship opener against Dublin, something which delighted him. "I was working hard and felt I was going well so I was happy enough to get my first championship start, it was in Croke Park and it was Dublin so that was brilliant. I wouldn't say I was completely happy with how I played - I know I got a couple of points but I could have done better. I was disappointed to be taken off but that's a management decision and you have to keep the head down and plug away. I started the qualifier game against Waterford and that was the only time I've started and finished a championship match. There are a lot of lads in there who have played a lot of championship matches so it was like a monkey off my back to start and finish a game."
After the promising start to the season, McAnarney was somewhat unfortunate to see virtually no more action for the rest of the summer, with a late cameo against Westmeath his only subsequent appearance for Meath during the championship. Was that something which was a cause of frustration? "Well, David Bray was after coming back from injury and you had Joe (Sheridan) coming in, and Stephen Bray was coming back from injury so, coming into the Westmeath game, I was looking at it thinking there was no way your captain and best forward wasn't going to start, so I suppose someone had to make way and unfortunately that was me."
Though McAnarney found the experience of watching from the line a difficult one, there was no question of feeling sorry for himself. "There's a good panel of lads there and everyone is vying for a place. Someone is always going to be disappointed but we're all in it together so you have to keep on putting in the effort. It'll be back down to it again very shortly. We'll be doing our gym work, then it'll be O'Byrne Cup and the ambition will be to win that, then the next target will be to get promoted to Division 1 in the League".
Playing in the top division is something which McAnarney sees as key to Meath's long-term progress. "When you're playing championship against the likes of Kerry and Dublin, but you're only playing Division 2 league football it does make it that little bit more difficult, so it's very important for us to get into a division where we are meeting the top sides week in and week out. That's the best way to bring lads on."
By coincidence, the same can be said of his club. Clann Na nGael are an intermediate side who - this season at least - were operating out of Division 4, which is made up of clubs from the junior ranks. The Athboy/Rathcairn outfit will benefit greatly from playing in Division 3 next season, in much the same way as Meath can only get better by playing against the best opponents at their level by climbing into the top tier in the National League.
Despite facing that relegation playoff mentioned earlier - Clann Na nGael did manage to beat eventual Intermediate champions Oldcastle when the sides met in the group stages earlier this. It would appear that the potential is there, so what went wrong in the other games?
"It was disappointing, because I believe there definitely is the talent there to win an intermediate, although it's one thing doing that and another surviving at senior level. We have a lot of young lads coming through and I suppose they need to mature and maybe a little bit more commitment is needed from everyone. We beat Oldcastle this year and I think we were the only team to beat them so that shows that the potential is there. We just didn't show that consistency in the other games and that's why we ended up where we did and in the end we just scraped past Castletown in the relegation playoff. But playing Division 3 next season will be a help to us all. In Division 4 you're effectively playing junior football, and you might go out in some games and score seven points yourself. Then you go out and play the likes of Dunderry and Oldcastle and the intensity is far higher - you get the ball and there are lads all over you! So from that point of view it's important that we play at a higher level in the league."
Finally, being self-employed, do the demands of being an inter-county footballer put a lot of extra pressure on McAnarney's shoulders, or is it something he is now accustomed to?
"When things were good a couple of years ago, if I needed to knock off a bit early for training it was no problem, but I suppose in the last year or so things have been a lot different and I've been a lot more hands-on. I find even with the club, you're out of the house at six in the morning, you're home at half six in the evening, you're grabbing gear, trying to get something to eat and go training. This year wasn't too bad with the county, but next year could be tough. But a lot of lads all over the country are doing the same. Last year we were training four or five nights a week with Meath between games, pool sessions and that, so it's quite a bit commitment, but it's well worth it - it's an honour and a privilege to play for your county. There aren't too many lads who get the chance to do it so it's something I make the best of."
McAnarney's enthusiasm and dedication is something to be admired, and with that type of commitment in the club, Clann Na nGael could be ready to build on their win over Oldcastle this season and establish themselves as firm contenders for honours in 2010. Tweet
