Dunsany is a club with a lot going for itself. Good grounds, top-notch facilities and a crop of young football talent which has the potential to end the club's barren years. One player looking to the future with confidence is Emmet Ferguson. If Emmet Ferguson's optimism could be bottled and marketed, there'd be a hell of a lot of GAA mentors around the country queueing up to acquire and thereafter share the Ferguson's elixir. There's no doubt but that the flying defender is inclined to view the glass as being half-full rather than half-empty. Indeed, a few minutes craic with the Dunsany clubman is liable to prompt a somewhat bowled-over hack to make haste towards the nearest turf accountant in search of any sort of odds being laid Dunsany way. The fact is though that the self-same bookies would likely as not fail to offer the sort of odds which could be rated as overly tempting for the Dunsany lads have invariably been perennial short-odds favourites to land the blue riband junior crown for at least the last four years. The reality is that young Ferguson's enthusiasm and that of his equally youthful team-mates isn't enough on its own to land a crown that has eluded them for almost as many years as Emmet himself has been kicking ball. So one wonders just why the Dunsany club has been unable to make the cut? "We've been knocking on the door for a number of years now but we just don't seem to be able to make the breakthrough. "There's definitely plenty of talent in the club and good, young lads coming through from minor ranks each year but we just need to get a bit more experience to enable us to turn quarter and semi-final appearances into final appearances . . .and winning ones at that." Time and patience is thus called for around Dunsany. With three or more minors on board and at least eight under 21s, including Emmet, forming the core of Dunsany's junior team from 2001, one can readily understand just why it is estimated that the club's premier team has time on its hands. Still, manys the club has boasted a 'young team' for a decade and more. Sometimes its the most consistent and best excuse a club can offer, i.e. that it has a top-heavy measure of youth and that the passage of time will put that right. "I've been playing with the juniors for the past five years but we haven't managed to just get the right mix between youth and experience. I think the day isn't that far off though when we do get that mix just right. "I think the fact that Nobber were much more experienced than us counted for a lot in deciding the outcome of our quarter final clash. They had good experience in key positions, especially around midfield but hopefully when we can get that sort of experience and maturity, we'll be more than a match for any team." Certainly given the sort of talent inherent in the Dunsany set-up at present, much can reasonably be expected of the club in the next year or so. Players such as St. Pat's, Navan star defender 'cum county minor panelist Sean Stephens and county junior Nicky Horan do, in most respects, mirror the sort of potential that is in place right now at Dunsany. However the aforementioned quarter-final defeat in the 2001 junior championship did leave an understandable bitter taste in the mouth among the Dunsany faithful, Emmet included. "It ruined our season basically. We missed out on the play-offs in the league but the championship exit was our biggest disappointment 'cause we thought we'd beat Nobber and go on to maybe win the championship outright this year. "The fact that Nicky (Horan) went into the game hampered by an ankle injury didn't help our cause and, partly as a result of his injury, our forwards got a much more limited supply of the ball. "The ironic thing about that game was that we had looked to get the game played in Pairc Tailteann but that plan basically backfired on us because we didn't do ourselves justice there and seldom have really." Still, as they say in the vernacular, Dunsany had the winning of the match against Nobber. Those present will all have their memories of the tie in the passage of time but the sound of the referee's whistle blowing just as Dunsany's Gerry O'Neill's shot was heading over the Nobber crossbar will arguably stick in the mind the longest. In fairness to Emmet though, he's not prepared to labour the point about O'Neill's point that wasn't. Instead, he satisfies himself with saying that Dunsany just underperformed over the course of their one point defeat. Indeed, in reflecting on the past year, the stoical full-back says he is in no doubt that the club is making progress. He supports this assessment by reminding all and sundry that the club had to fight a relegation play-off against Bective to stay in division three in 2000 whereas in 2001 Dunsany narrowly lost out on gaining a place in the play-off to get promotion into division two. "I felt the likes of Wolfe Tones and Ballinabrackey would have started the year as most people's favourites to win the championship but our league form was so good in the run-up to the start of the championship that I felt we were in with a great chance of causing a few shocks. "Although we had a fairly poor game against 'O'Mahony's, we trounced Ballinabrackey and also beat Slane and Oldcastle in the league. "Our record in the championship suggested as well that we'd be there in the shake-up again and we had hoped that we could take it on a bit from our 1998 success in reaching the semi-final where we went out to Moylagh and our 1999 achievement in reaching the quarter-final where we lost to Athboy." Born and reared in Dunsany, Emmet - a mechanical engineering student in Bolton Street, Dublin - is obviously someone who is proud of his local GAA club and passionately keen to achieve major honours. Such gra and ambition is hardly surprising though. His father Liam was good enough to represent Dublin at the highest level in hurling and actually played for his native county in the 1969 All-Ireland SHC final defeat to Tipp. Meanwhile, Emmet is a first cousin of former Royal County star Terry Ferguson and a nephew of the great Des 'Snitchy' Ferguson. Matters GAA are in Emmet's blood so but he'd love to have some medals in his cabinet back home to reflect his breeding. A winning pedigree at underage level with Dunsany is grand but it's what's achieved at adult level that means most when retirement eventually beckons. "Like myself, a lot of the current team have won medals at the various underage grades and so we have a belief in ourselves that we can win things. Expectations are also pretty high among club members in general too and hopefully we can realise those expectations sooner rather than later," the talented 21-year old adds. Certainly with a splendid clubhouse, "a hard-working committee" and a good team of mentors present at the club, Dunsany has the infrastructure and the personnel along the line to help make things happen on the field of play. So can Dunsany crack it in 2002? "I hope so. As I say, we've been knocking on the door long enough at this stage and it's about time it opened. We have the talent to compete successfully with any of the other teams around." So watch out, Dunsany's about! Tweet

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