St. Mary's prospects of claiming a first Junior Football Championship title since 1979 were seriously undermined by the loss of several key players for the 2002 campaign, but the Donore club remains upbeat about the future and hopes are high that the coming year can be significantly better given any sort of luck at all. They failed to advance from Group B of the JFC, which also included Dunsany, Ballinabrackey, Drumbaragh, Kilmainham and Dunshaughlin, after managing just one victory, two draws and two defeats. Those results left them out of the reckoning on four points in a section that was dominated by 'Brackey, who went through the divisional stages with an unblemished record of five straight wins, with Dunsany finishing second and claiming the other ticket to the knock-out stages. Mary's, who had started the year on a positive note by taking the delayed 2001 Special Under-21 FC, defeating Longwood in the final, enjoyed a very progressive run in Div. 4 of the All-County 'A' League and just missed out on promotion and a final place when they lost a play-off against Ballinabrackey to decide the runner-up spot in the group. 'Brackey went on to lose to table-toppers Na Fianna in the final. And in the Junior C Championship, Mary's second team enjoyed a good run before bowing out to Moynalvey at the quarter-final stage. But the Junior Championship is the one the Donore club want to win and bridge that lengthening gap since they claimed the title in '79 with a victory over Meath Hill in the decider which went to a replay, having lost out at the final hurdle against Walterstown, also after a replay, the previous year. Unfortunately, St. Mary's were dealt a number of big blows before they even got to kick a ball in the 2002 competition, most notably the considerable loss of the highly influential Tony Grifferty who transferred to Newtown Blues in Louth. Seanie Lynch departed for Hunterstown Rovers, also in the Wee County, and add in the absence of ace midfielder Billy Bell, Mark Lynch and Mark Sheerin and it's easy to appreciate that St. Mary's weren't exactly operating with their strongest 15 when the JFC commenced with a match against Drumbaragh. "At the start of the year expectations were quite high in the club that we could enjoy a good run in the Junior Football Championship," said St. Mary's centre half-back Robert Victory. "However, when everything is taken into consideration, it has to be appreciated that we lost no fewer than five players from last year's first team and that's a lot. Successfully replacing that many lads isn't easy. "But we knuckled down and we had to adapt without them, though we didn't exactly get off to the best of starts in the championship when we were held to a draw by Drumbaragh in our first game. And to add to the absence of so many players, we went on to lose both our midfielders, Owen Craven with a cruciate ligament injury and Fintan O'Brien with a cartilage injury. "I though we had picked things up quite well before that and, although we didn't manage to get out of our group in the championship, we probably did reasonably well considering everything that had happened. The loss of so many players forced us to blood some young lads in the 17 and 18-year-old bracket." St. Mary's only victory of the junior competition came against Dunshaughlin in their second outing. They also drew with Kilmainham, but that point gained was unfortunately sandwiched between defeats against the strongest two sides in their group, Ballinabrackey and Dunsany, and those two reversals ruined their chances of making a serious assault on a place in the knockout stages. But the end of their championship aspirations didn't signal the end of the season for the club's first string and their fine run of form in the Div. 4 'A' League gave the club a welcome extension to their campaign and how they made the most of it as they strung a series of fine results together and came so close to reaching the final and gaining promotion. Na Fianna topped the division, but St. Mary's tied for second position with Ballinabrackey on 17 points after winning seven of their 11 matches, drawing three and losing only once. That list of results certainly represented a consistent campaign. It all meant that a play-off was required against 'Brackey to decide second position in the group, but that match resulted in disappointment for Mary's as they were edged out by just two points on a 2-12 to 3-7 score line. But that good league run, despite the fact that the end result wasn't promotion or a trophy, should help the development and confidence of the team, particularly with younger players trying to establish themselves, and it also meant that they had something to play for towards the latter stages of the campaign after their interest in the championship had come to an end. "In the past, if we were gone out of the championship, that might have been that for the year," reflected Robert Victory. "But full credit has to be given to our manager Gerry Flanagan who has done a great job with the team. He encouraged us to keep things going when our interest in the championship had come to an end and that helped to make it a very good and encouraging league run. "Gerry gets on very well with the players and again, considering everything that happened, our overall performance in the league represented a fair achievement. Thankfully, it prolonged our campaign and that good run also offers us hope for next year. "In a nutshell, the junior team made progress in 2002 without gaining anything in terms of silverware and it's encouraging that we have introduced some new players like Stephen Madden and Brian Smith who are so vitally important to our future. Circumstances forced us to blood some youngsters, but they can only benefit from the experience of playing their football at this level." The club's second string enjoyed a very good run in the Junior C Championship, emerging from their division after a series of victories and qualifying for the preliminary quarter-finals where they came face-to-face with Walterstown. That match will best be remembered for a great Mary's comeback after they had all the appearances of a well-beaten team when trailing by eight points. But they clawed their way back and eventually claimed a draw (0-10 each). The replay turned out to be a very different sort of match, producing four goals after neither side managed to hit the net in the drawn fixture. The fact that Mary's claimed three of those goals helped enormously and they ran out winners by nine points on a 3-12 to 1-9 score line. But the good Junior C run was brought to an end at the quarter-final stage when Moynalvey possessed too much scoring power for Mary's and won by 12 points (2-14 to 0-8). The dream of winning the Junior Championship and returning to the intermediate ranks lives on for St. Mary's. Circumstances conspired to work against them in the 2002 campaign, but with a nice crop of young players coming through, the step up might not be too far away for the Donore club. Tweet

Most Read Stories