It doesn't seem like two decades have passed since Ballinabrackey last won the Meath Junior Football Championship title. But it is and as time goes steadily by the club's loyal supporters must be starting to wonder if the Offaly-border side will ever reach such heights again. By Paul Clarke. Of course, it will come as something of a surprise if Ballinabrackey don't achieve their main goal of making it back to the intermediate ranks once more in the not too distant future, but there was further disappointment in the 2005 junior campaign when they failed to mount a serious challenge for honours and, consequently, didn t make it out of the group stages for the second successive year. In their favour, it has to be said that they suffered a number of very narrow defeats along the way. They also under-performed in Div. 3 of the All-County A League and were well off the pace in that competition. Yet, just three years earlier 'Brackey were showing all the right and positive signs and looked very close to the desired breakthrough as they performed with great consistency in both competitions. They made it all the way to the semi-finals of the Junior Championship, where they lost to highly accomplished eventual winners Nobber, and gained promotion from Div. 4 of the league, though unfortunately losing the final of that particular competition to the Enfield/Baconstown combination Na Fianna. That type of form certainly offered considerable hope for the future and suggested that better days were on the horizon for the club. As the 2003 campaign approached there had to be room for optimism and the hope that championship silverware was a realistic possibility, but it wasn't to be as Ballinabrackey bowed out of the title race at the quarter-final stage to the previous year's beaten finalists Dunsany who were also to go on and suffer the bitter taste of defeat in the 2004 decider against Ratoath. But hope springs eternal and, despite another failure to achieve championship honours, 2004 arrived with the usual hope that it might just turn out to be your year. However, that certainly wasn't the case for Ballinabrackey as a combination of those dreaded injuries and players heading abroad robbed them of key personnel and they failed to make it to the business end of the battle for the coveted Matthew Ginnity Cup. And there was similar disappointment experienced in the junior campaign gone by as 'Brackey's bid for a place in the knock-out stages just never got off the ground and the competition, as a whole, proved to be something of a struggle, just as the A League Div. 3 campaign was. The men given the responsibility of trying to guide 'Brackey to championship glory were Danny Flynn, Chris Kennedy and Gerry Donoghue. They were drawn in group C of the Junior Championship - a section that also included St. Ultan's, winners of the junior title as recently as 2000 and justifiably on the short list of most followers to gain outright honours once more, St. Michael's, another side with realistic hopes of a prolonged run in the competition, Drumbaragh, Bective, St. Vincent's and the second string teams from Dunderry and Dunshaughlin. Three teams clearly stood out from the rest in the section - St. Ultan's, St. Michael's, particularly with the amazing Martin O Connell still proving influential at the age of 42, and Ballinabrackey - and when 'Brackey were drawn out to meet the highly regarded Bohermeen/Martry combination in the first round at Summerhill on the second Sunday of April they were fully aware of what a victory would do to enhance their hopes of achieving mission number one and making it to the knock-out stages of the championship. It was surely the toughest possible opening to the campaign for Ballinabrackey, but the incentive was certainly there to take the points from one of their big group rivals. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be and it was St. Ultan's who made the desired winning start, scoring by three points on a 0-9 to 0-6 score line. There was no lack of hunger or commitment in the Ballinabrackey performance and they did manage to stay well in contention throughout the contest, but St. Ultan's never trailed and held a slender 0-6 to 0-4 lead at half-time. The second period was a very low-scoring affair and the winners managed to add only three points to their tally. However, the fact that 'Brackey scored only twice didn't help their cause in any way and the goal they required to seriously ignite their challenge never arrived. St. Michael's provided the opposition in the second round at Dunderry and were always likely to provide a very stern test as Ballinabrackey attempted to kick-start their championship campaign and recover from that losing start. They didn't get the desired victory, but at least they didn't lose and a draw ('Brackey 1-8, St. Michael's 0-11) was by no means a bad outcome against another of the stronger teams in the group. However, the reality after two rounds was that they had dropped three points out of four and that meant the encounter against Bective in the third series of qualifying matches on a wet evening at Longwood took on major significance and represented something of a must win match for Ballinabrackey. But this was where their championship aspirations suffered a savage blow as Bective pulled off a big shock by scoring a two-point (1-6 to 0-7) victory. An early goal from Bective's Ian Cahill inflicted a lot of damage on 'Brackey's hopes of a win and helped the winners to a three-point advantage. However, 'Brackey gradually settled and left themselves in a much more satisfactory position at the interval when the sides were on level terms (0-6 to 1-3). But their very poor return of a single second half point simply wasn't good enough and Bective finished strongly to secure the shock success. Drumbaragh were the surprise team of the group C campaign and they added to Ballinabrackey's championship misery when scoring a narrow 0-10 to 0-9 victory in the fourth round at Trim. 'Brackey appeared to have every chance of achieving their first win of the competition when they shaded the first half exchanges and held a slender 0-5 to 0-4 lead at the break. And when that advantage was stretched to three points with only six minutes to go they were odds-on favourites to triumph. But Drumbaragh found most when it mattered in the closing stages and pulled back the deficit. That ace marksman John Smith drew them level and then snatched a dramatic late winner to maintain his side's fine start to the championship. Ballinabrackey finally got a group victory when they had an easy success over Ardcath side St. Vincent's in the fifth round at Dunsany, but the 3-10 to 1-9 win came far too late to bolster their hopes of making it through to the knock-out stages. By that stage St. Ultan's, St. Michael's and Drumbaragh were setting the pace at the top of the group and 'Brackey were way off the pace on just three points following one win, one draw and three defeats. Pride was the only thing at stake when they played Dunshaughlin in the sixth round at Summerhill and 'Brackey were in goal-scoring form, winning by 5-8 to 0-5 after leading by 2-4 to 0-2 at the interval. Despite their failure to make it to the knock-out stages of the Junior Championship, club chairman Jim Cooney, while disappointed, was by no means downhearted and is optimistic about the future. "It was disappointing, mainly because so many of the games we lost were close matches," he said. "St. Ultan's beat us by three points in the first round and we drew with St. Michael's in the second round. We got off on the wrong footing and we really needed to win the third round game against Bective. "We lost that by two points on a miserable evening for football in Longwood. That defeat was a big blow to us. We also lost to Drumbaragh by only a point, so there were so many close games that we could have won. You're probably better off losing by 10 points than by one or two. "The bottom line is that you need to be scoring. We have very good backs and a good midfield as well, but we need a few forwards to help strengthen the team. We need to be getting more points. Injuries have also been a problem for us, but I believe that we're not that far off the mark. We were worse in 2004 than this year, so I think we're going in the right direction. "We have some very good players, like John Curry, Trevor Bannon, Derry Flynn and Pat Loftus, and we have youth coming through. Our under-age structures are very good from under-10 up. We have a lot of lads working at it. "We have plenty of players coming through and, hopefully, they will stay at it. I would be hopeful for the future." Tweet

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