St. Patrick's made their long-awaited return in the senior ranks this year and came tantalizingly close to qualifying for the knock-out stages. Club stalwart Myra O'Flaherty believes that it was a satisfactory year for the Stamullen outfit. For a club just promoted from the intermediate ranks, St. Patrick's looked very much at ease with life in the senior grade this year. Perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised by this given that the Stamullen men were Division One League champions in 2000. The difficulties so many promoted teams experience in adjusting to the pace of senior football was never really an issue with St. Pat's. "It was a smooth enough transition," says Myra O'Flaherty, one of St. Pat's most committed members. "For teams coming up from intermediate, senior football can often prove to be a real baptism of fire but I suppose we knew what to expect having played against the top clubs in the league. We were never threatened with relegation and that is something we would have been happy to settle for at the beginning of the year," she adds. Having finally broken their intermediate championship duck last year (they had lost the two previous finals), St. Patrick's found themselves in the unusual position of not being weighed down by a pressure to succeed. They were well beaten by Walterstown in their first outing but recovered to beat Summerhill by a point in round two. Seneschalstown inflicted a heavy defeat on them in the next round but once again, St. Pat's bounced back in impressive style, beating Trim by 0-16 to 0-5 to keep their championship interests alive. A three-way play-off between St. Pat's, Trim and Seneschalstown was then required to decide which team progressed to the quarter-finals. As it transpired, St. Pat's were drawn to play Seneschalstown with Trim awaiting the winners. Donore was the venue for St. Pat's clash with Seneschalstown in mid-August. It was widely expected that Seneschalstown would repeat their earlier win but the Stamullen men had other ideas. St. Patrick's got off to a whirlwind start with Martin Kirk finding the net inside the first minute. Seneschalstown hit back with three unanswered points to level after 19 minutes. But, after amassing six successive wides, St. Pat's regained the initiative courtesy of an Ivan Curran goal. Four minutes later, St. Pat's supporters were in dreamland when JP Ryan's rocket of a shot had the Seneschalstown net bulging for a third time. That left the green and whites in a commanding 3-1 to 0-4 lead at the interval. Graham Geraghty made inroads into the St. Pat's lead on the restart with three points but a couple of great scores from Peter and Cormac Sullivan left the Stamullen side six points clear with eight minutes of normal time remaining. But Seneschalstown refused to throw in the towel and a Joe Sheridan goal brought them back into contention. The margin had been reduced to two points before Daithi Whyte gave St. Pat's valuable breathing space with two excellent scores. Sheridan scored a second Seneschalstown goal deep into injury-time but Dudley Farrell's charges held out for victory on a 3-8 to 2-10 scoreline. It was the end of September before St. Pat's met Trim in the Group A play-off final at Dunsany. Determined to avenge their earlier defeat, Trim dominated from the off and only for a brief period early in the second half did St. Patrick's ask any questions of them. Trim were five points clear at the end of the opening quarter but St. Pat's battled back to trail by two, 0-6 to 0-8, at half-time. With the breeze behind them in the second half, St. Pat's hit three points without reply to take the lead but that was as good as it got for the Stamullen men. Benny Murray's 40th minute goal proved a turning point and in no time at all, Trim were eight points to the good. Daithi Whyte and Peter Sullivan scored late goals for St. Pat's to reduce the deficit to just two points but Trim finished strongly to run out 1-15 to 2-9 winners. While disappointed by their championship exit, Myra O'Flaherty believes it was a satisfactory year nonetheless for Dudley Farrell and his players. "When you consider that we lost five or six players after we won the intermediate championship, you would have to say that the team did very well," she says. "Our aim first and foremost was to stay up senior and we achieved that quite comfortably. It's only when you see the likes of Navan O'Mahony's being relegated that you realise how well we did in what was our first year up." Myra, who is the club's underage secretary and is involved in both the adult and finance committees, was also pleased to see St. Patrick's retain their Division One status. "We didn't enjoy a great league campaign and needed to beat Kells in our final game to stay up in Division One. But the main thing is that we stayed up and that's all that really mattered. It would be a big disadvantage to us if we weren't playing the top teams on a weekly basis in the league." Arguably the most successful St. Pat's team over the past year was the under 14 side who won the Division Three South League title. Under the tutelage of senior player Barry Campbell, this particular team enjoyed a marvellous campaign which culminated in a 6-8 to 1-14 victory over Ballivor in the final at Skyrne. The under 16s, who were managed by Declan Russell, Tom Kirwan and Hughie Calvey, reached the Division Three East League final but were forced to give second best to St. Colmcille's. Incidentally, two members of that under 16 side - Paul McGinty and Conor O'Flaherty (Myra's son) - played for the county team this year. The St. Pat's under 12 team, which was coached by Michael McLoughlin and Ivan Curran, also contested a county league final but were defeated by Curraha. The junior 'B' hurling team, which is trained by Tom Kirwan, entered competition for the second successive year. Considerable interest was shown by players but success proved elusive. Encouragingly, both Fergus Minogue and John Paul Ryan were part of the county junior hurling team with John Paul having since been promoted to the senior panel. Getting back to the senior footballers, however, and the important question: can they build on this year's progress next season? "I can see no reason why," claims Myra who is well known for her role as Meath minor board assistant secretary. "We did as well as anyone could have expected this year and I have no doubt that the lads will have learned an awful lot from it. They now have senior championship experience under their belts and that has to be a big plus. "Dudley Farrell has stepped down as manager and that is a setback to us because he achieved a lot of success with us. But whoever takes over, I'm sure he will do a good job." Tweet

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