In a year in which the GAA introduced a 'back door' All-Ireland football championship for the first time, Trim stumbled upon a spare key to take the Meath Senior Hurling Championship title for the 26th time. It was the Reds' ninth triumph in 14 campaigns and although they have figured consistently in the closing stages of the race for the Jubilee Cup since coming back as a strong force in 1987, last autumn's final appearance was actually their first since '98. Then they defeated their greatest rivals, Kilmessan, in a replayed decider with John Andrews, the four times SHC winner as a player, enjoying outright glory as Trim's coach in his first season at the helm. Then in 1999 Trim were removed from the SHC for failing to fulfil a fixture against Killyon and it was the other way round the year after. In 2000 it was Kilmessan's turn to refuse to 'enter the starting stalls' with their no show for the final very unsatisfactory as Andrews' men were presented with the championship trophy after a Leinster club hurling game at Pairc Tailteann. So Trim were understandably delighted to gain the SHC title on the pitch after the frustrations of the two previous years and, as in 1998, they took the outright honours after a replay, eventually getting the better of first time finalists Dunderry. Andrews was still at the helm for the latest success which looked highly unlikely after defeats at the hands of Navan O'Mahonys and Dunboyne. They would have been out of the title race had Kildalkey managed to defeat O'Mahonys in the last round group game but the Navan side managed to draw that encounter. The latter result led to a play off between Trim and Kildalkey to decide the second qualifiers from the division behind Dunboyne and the Benny Murray-captained outfit repeated an earlier victory over the men in blue and white to advance to a 'semi' clash with Kilmessan. Trim's indifferent form suggested that Kilmessan should regain the title but the Jubilee Cup holders served up their most impressive display of the year in the 3-10 to 0-7 semi-final victory over their keenest rivals. Such a result had local pundits of the small ball game tearing up their form books in disgust and the result made as much sense as Knockbridge's seven points success over Trim a few weeks later. 'Trim settle arguments' was one headline after the Athboy clash in which Benny Murray scored 2-7 of the winning total and teenager Joey Toole displayed his blossoming talents in a classy performance. C. J. Murtagh, who along with Declan Murray, has been on all nine SHC winning teams since 1987, felt that the display in that penultimate round clash was the best by a team representing the club in a long time. "Before meeting us that day, Kilmessan had won all their games and won them well. According to reports, they were putting in more effort than usual on the training pitch. But we were 'up' for that game and we were delighted to win it, especially after showing such indifferent form earlier in the championship," said the long serving full back. "It was a very unusual championship for us. As long as I've been playing with the team, we never before lost two games in our division. We were well beaten by O'Mahonys but were unlucky not to get at least a draw from the game against Dunboyne. "We played much better when beating Kildalkey with a goal to spare and while we also got a win over Boardsmill, we had to depend on other results going in our favour and were lucky to get back into contention. While Kildalkey might have been unlucky not to qualify, we had 10 points to spare in the second round clash with them," continued Murtagh. After getting over that hurdle, Trim had new final opponents in neighbours Dunderry. They had met a few times in the SHC and Dunderry defeated them in 1996 when the Reds failed to make it through to the last four. Between 1985 and 2001 Trim only missed out on reaching the 'semis' in two years. Present Hurling Board chairman Sean Colgan was at the helm for the third year when Trim lifted the Jubilee Cup for the first time since 1960 in '87 and since then Frank McCann (two different stints), Martin Dempsey and John Andrews have guided the reds to glory. Andrews was one of the busiest GAA men in the country last season. When his club had some difficulty in securing a football coach to replace Brendan Dempsey, John agreed to step into the breach and assume a dual role. The bulk of the hurling team were also involved with the senior football side which got to the quarter-final of the championship where they lost to Dunderry. According to C. J. Murtagh, John Andrews is hugely committed to the Trim club and is a great motivator. After sharing in four SHC triumphs as a player, he said that coaching his club to the 1998 victory was even better and was equally elated last October. Trim were probably in a 'no win' situation when they faced Dunderry and Murtagh remarked that they could have been beaten in the initial clash in Athboy which ended with the holders having 0-14 on the board to their opponents' 1-11. The game was 27 minutes old before Trim took the lead and they were ahead by 0-10 to 1-3 at the interval. After being five points to the good five minutes into the second half, the town team could only manage to add two more points. Trim were forced to dip into their 'emergency bag' and produced veteran Eunan McCaffrey, who was also to claim a ninth SHC medal although he did not play in all of the finals. But the 'big man,' who had been troubled by a back injury, was barely on the pitch when he was replaced by another substitute, Paul Gilsenan. Gilsenan and Ronan Fitzsimons both returned from America in the autumn to increase the options of both the hurling and football teams. But Benny Murray and Joey Toole remained the hurlers' main marksmen, scoring 0-5 and 0-7 respectively in the drawn decider, as a late Tommy Dowd point put celebrations on hold. Trim reshuffled their pack a little for the replay with Eibhin Lynam and Fitzsimons being promoted to starting roles and the pair repaid John Andrews by scoring 1-2 and 0-2 respectively. Lynam's goal which came just before the break was a fortunate score and boosted his side to a 1-7 to 0-5 lead. It was double scores at both half time and full time with the score board reading 1-13 to 0-8 when Jimmy Henry blew his whistle for the last time of the day. Benny Murray, who scored a fine total of 3-51 in the campaign, was captain for the second successive year and was delighted to accept the cup after a final victory this time. "It certainly makes up for the disappointing finish last year. We thought we had a lot to prove today and all the players wanted this win very badly. We learned an awful lot from the first game," remarked Andrews. Six days after again proving to be the best hurling team in Meath, Trim slipped to an embarrassing defeat to Knockbridge in the Leinster club championship. Knockbridge had only won the Louth SHC for the first time in 2001 and two goals in the second half enabled them to score a shock success at St. Loman's Park. "That was embarrassing all right," remarked C. J. Murtagh, who added "we shouldn't be offering any excuses but we were probably a bit complacent, after all Trim had beaten opposition from Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare and Kildare in the competition over the years." "Okay, we were never going to win out in the province but getting beaten by a team from Louth did not look good for Meath hurling. It's hard to figure out how we managed to get beaten as Knockbridge were hardly as good as Carnew from Wicklow whom we defeated last year. Still losing that game does not cloud my view of what was a great year for the team," continued the full back. Now C.J. Murtagh, Declan Murray and Eunan McCaffrey are closer to the late Ollie O'Reilly's club record of 11 SHC medals which were amassed in a 20 year period between 1940 and '60. For a long time in 2001 Trim held hopes of winning both the SHC and SFC titles. But after reversing an earlier result to score a play off victory over St. Patrick's, the footballers failed to perform against Dunderry and were eliminated at the quarter-final stage. Trim have just one SFC title to their credit. That was gained back in 1962 when Kilmessan took the SHC honours. Could they do the double which Navan O'Mahonys achieved in 1985 in the near future? "That would be very difficult to achieve. Trim probably have too many dual players in comparison to the small number that O'Mahonys had when they won the two titles in the same year," suggested C. J. Murtagh. "The nearest that we got to winning both in the same year in recent times was in 1997 when reaching the football final and losing to Kilmessan in a 'semi' clash in hurling. A lot of effort has been put into the football in the club in the last few years and hopefully that can be transferred into outright success soon," remarked the defender in both codes. Trim? Very much so! Trim GAA idealists yearn for a magnificent senior hurling and football championship double. Club chairman Sean Gilsenan, meanwhile, is more rooted to mother Earth. A first blue riband football title since 1962 will do just nicely - whatever the year as long as it's sooner rather than later! Former Cavan star Ollie Brady is only one of two All-Stars to emerge from Breffni land to date. Current Trim chairman Sean Gilsenan is a former Redhills clubmate of Brady's but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since the two kicked a ball in anger together. Indeed for the past 15 years, Sean has given all his Gaelic energies over towards helping his adopted Trim GAA retain its eminent position in Meath Gaelic Games circles. There is a saying that you can take the man out of the bog but you can't take the bog out of the man. So be it with Sean. Although he is ensconced in Trim for some 23 years now, his heart will always be in his native Cavan. He'll be forever a man with blue blood coursing through his veins. Not that one could begin to question Sean's commitment to his adopted Trim. Formerly chairman of the club's juvenile section, for the last four years Sean has held the hot seat at Trim GAA. And by all accounts he is making a very good fist of the role of chairman. Certainly the red and whites have made considerable strides, both on and off the field of play, since Sean took up the reins in 1997. Sean is quick to point out though that Trim GAA is not a one-man band. Instead, he is fulsome in his praise of the parent commitee that is in place and all other sub-committees besides. Over the last four years, Trim have been knocking frantically on the door at blue riband level, having reached both a senior county final (only to lose out to O'Mahony's in the 1997 decider), and a senior semi-final (2000). Meanwhile over the course of the same period of time, Trim GAA purchased 28 acres of land for a sum of £150,000 and have worked strenuously to develop the site into two full-size playing pitches which they hope to officially make available for games next September. So all things going well, Trim GAA hope to have three full-size pitches in place before the end of next season. And with the club committing itself to playing a central role over the next five years in the development of a new community centre costing in the region of £12million (at the planning office at the time of writing), Sean and co. are obviously busy trying to keep sport very much in focus in the area. Of course as well as hoping to have unrivalled facilities at their disposal in the coming years, all concerned with the fortunes of Trim GAA are hoping that the club will be able to call on all their players for battle. In this regard, Sean reflects on the fact that the club's football team had to make do without a number of their more prominent members for the forthcoming championship season - unlike last year. "We had to make do without the services of Ronan Fitzsimons and my own son Paul last year when both went to the U.S. Richie Fitzsimons was also missing as he went to Germany and then Colm McHugh was in London. "Trim can't afford to be without so many of our first team players and seriously hope to be in the running for the senior championship although losing out to Dunderry in the quarter-final was a big disappointment nonetheless." How big a disappointment? "It was a big blow to the morale of the club. At the start of the year we set out to avoid being relegated from the top flight and we achieved that goal but the fact that our players didn't play to their potential against Dunderry was a big let-down. "After all, we were happy enough in having to face Dunderry in the quarter-final. We expected to go through and thought they'd be just as worried about us as we were about them. "We didn't particularly like having to come up against Dunderry though because of the last five times we've played them they beat us three times. On the day though they were much sharper all around the field. We couldn't really have any complaints. "They got an early goal and we just couldn't get into the game after that. We only scored 1-2 in total, the goal coming in the last few minutes. That says a lot about our display on the day." Reflecting on the year in general, Sean accepts the portents hadn't been really good at the start of the year. Losing out to Walterstown in the first group match wasn't what the doctor ordered. It was a bad start which immediately put Trim under pressure. Thereafter though a victory over Seneschalstown helped restore the club's equilibrium. Defeat was then suffered at the hands of St. Pat's before the club got back on the tracks with a win over Summerhill. With Paul (Gilsenan) and Ronan (Fitzsimons) back in tow for the play-off game with St. Pat's, hopes were high within the ranks of Trim that their fitful run in the championship could be embellished considerably. Trim played pretty well for the majority of the tie with St. Pat's second time around and actually led by seven points with about seven minutes remaining to be played. . . .and then the wheels threaten to fall off. However, Trim held firm and eventually secured their place in the quarter-finals, all to no avail as things transpired though. Sean is consoled in the knowledge in that Trim will remain "there or thereabouts" in the hunt in the next few years for the biggest prize sport in Meath has to offer. "I don't think we're that far off the pace, especially when you consider that we reached the semi-finals of the championship last year and should really have beaten Dunshaughlin on the day. "I remember the Dunshaughlin lads admitting after the game that their match against us was their most difficult hurdle that year. I remember too how we were camped for about ten minutes in their half of the field at the hospital end of the ground but just couldn't score." Looking at the general lie of the land in Meath senior football circles, Sean reckons that the likes of Dunshaughlin, Skyrne, Kilmainhamwood and Dunderry could arguably be ranked in tier one while his own club Trim and the likes of Simonstown and Seneschalstown would be perched on the second rung of the ladder right now. "Overall there's very little difference in the quality of players available to around a half-dozen clubs in the county. And on our day, we have the players who can mix it with the best there is around," Sean insists. Certainly with some seven of the current Trim senior side scarcely over 21 years of age, the club has youth on its side. Sean hopes though that the players will show just a tad more consistency in their efforts in the coming season because with that extra bit of commitment and another year's experience, Sean believes Trim have what it takes to make it to the top of the pile. Watch this space. Tweet

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