Longwood came close to reaching the semi-finals of the Senior Hurling Championship of 2003 but, after winning promotion in the All-County A Football League for the second year running slipped up in the Junior B Football Championship. It is in the big ball game that their regrets linger and next year, argues the club's teenage dual star Michael Burke, they will settle for nothing less than victory. Seneschalstown, Castletown, Boardsmill and Bellewstown all fell to severe championship beatings at the hands of the Longwood footballers last summer. And it is not that difficult to see why. After passing through Division 4 with barely a nod of greeting to the clubs ensconced in that division for years, Longwood is clearly a club on the up. In hurling terms, they are already on the top tier, but that is perhaps not surprising, given the traditions of the locality. Trapped in that south-west corner of the county where their neighbours include Trim, Boardsmill, Killyon and Rathmolyon, Longwood's young sportsmen may see hurling not so much a choice as a vocation. With three of the club's Dorran brothers - Dan, David and Ray - fixtures on the county team, Longwood again rubbed shoulders with the best hurlers in the county in the summer of 2003. Victories over Killyon, Dunderry and, most notably, Dunboyne, pushed them to the brink of an appearance in the semi-finals, but defeats to table-topping Navan O'Mahony's and, crucially, Kildalkey ultimately put paid to their chances of automatic passage to the last four. Instead, they faced another meeting with Dunboyne in a play-off to decide who would progress to the semis. This time, however, they would be deprived of the services of two of their best players. Michael Burke, one of only two players to gain county minor recognition in both hurling and football within the past twelve months, saw the enforced absence of two of the club's most important players as the main reason for their defeat at the hands of Dunboyne in the mid-August play-off. "We had beaten them earlier in the year and were looking forward to the play-off," says Michael. "But we had a lot of injuries the second day. Enda Dixon, the centre back and captain, did his knee and was out for most of the year, and James Dorran broke his collar-bone in the first game against Dunboyne. "He was our centre forward, so it meant our centre back and centre forward gone for the game, and that was a serious blow. You know, it's a fairly small club, with a fairly small panel, and you want all your best players fit. We really missed them." The game ended in a disappointing 1-13 to 0-8 defeat, with Dunboyne's Neville Reilly, superbly marshalled by Ray Dorran in the earlier clash, coming out on top the second time around, firing eight points, the winning margin. The following weekend, the footballers took the field for their Junior B Championship meeting with St Vincent's. The football and hurling sides are far from mutually exclusive, and the majority play both codes. Whether the proximity of the game to the previous week's hurling championship exit had any bearing on the big football match is open to question. But there was no denying the disappointment to all in Longwood of what transpired in that semi-final. Having won six of their seven group matches, several of them by wide margins, and overcome neighbouring rivals Clonard by a comfortable seven points in the quarter-final, they had a right to go into the last four in confident mood. However, the fact that the only side that had denied them victory in the championship all year - St Vincent's of Ardcath - faced them in the last four should have guarded them against complacency. "Maybe we were a little bit over-confident," admits Burke, "but we knew it would be a tough game against Vincent's. We were going into the game expecting to beat them, but we just didn't get going on the day. "They had a man sent off early in the second half and I suppose 14 men works better for some teams. They got men behind the ball and made it very hard for us, and we couldn't get it going. "They ended up winning with the last kick of the ball, a free from right in front of the posts. It was very, very disappointing, because we were going all out to win it this year. "We've a good oul' side, though, with a few very good young players coming through, and we'd be very confident going into next year." Michael is the son of the village publican Michael "Stoney" Burke, who played minor and senior championship for Meath on the one day, against Longford in Mullingar in 1959! And the younger Michael added to the family folklore by making the Meath minor team in both football and hurling in 2003; indeed, he and Dunshaughlin starlet Caoimhin King were the only two players in the county to represent Meath in both the minor football and hurling championships. He started at right-half-back on the Meath minor team that lost in the first round of the Leinster championship to Dublin at Pairc Tailteann in May, and took his place at midfield on the hurling team that made it all the way to the All-Ireland Minor B Championship final in November, where they lost out in agonizing circumstances to Carlow, when the Royal County representatives led until Carlow scored a goal in injury time. But while he is understandably delighted to have got the chance to don the green jersey, he is, in keeping with an evident desire for tangible achievement, disappointed with the way the championship ended for both sides. He also revealed that he is looking to the future, and the possibility of making the cut for the Meath under-21 sides in the coming years. "I've been playing county football and hurling since I was under-14," he says, "and it was a great experience to play minor this year. We were beaten 0-14 to 2-4 in the minor and Dublin went the whole way to the final, and in the hurling we made it to the final and led until the last minute when Carlow scored a goal to win 2-5 to 0-10. That was a real sickener. "But I want to play more for the county; Benny Reddy [the county minor boss in 2003] is the new under-21 manager, so hopefully he'll give a few of us a chance over the next couple of years. "I'll definitely be looking forward to going to the trials, and if I don't make it this year coming, then definitely the following year." Having attended trials for the under-17 international rules side at Portarlington in the winter of 2002, Michael is no stranger to the step-up in standard, and he hopes that can work to the benefit of both himself and Longwood in the coming years. He agrees that the prospect of Division 3 League football, and the better standard of play they will encounter there, should adequately prepare Longwood for another tilt at the Junior B Championship. "This year," he recalls, "we played three intermediate teams in the league - Ultan's, Rathkenny and Nobber - and beat two of them, and beat Ratoath, who got to the Junior final, so we know we can play at a higher level. "We played Nobber in the final and really put it up to them. We only lost by three points [1-11 to 1-8] and they were saying after the game that they were shocked at how good we were. "We did well enough this year but we didn't get what we wanted. We trained harder than ever, but we're just going to have to do it all over again to try to win the Junior B next year. We know we're good enough to win it. Please God we'll do it - I'll be very, very disappointed if we don't." Tweet

Most Read Stories