It's over 40 years now since Kilbride arrived on the scene with a bang to establish themselves as the undisputed kingpins of Meath football. Inspired by some stellar displays from John Bruton in the centre of the park, the former lords of all they surveyed made a telling move in the right direction in '05. Okay, gaining promotion to Division 3 of the all-county league may not be quite as impressive as landing five Keegan Cups in seven years (a feat achieved by Kilbride in 1964-71 inclusive), but it's a significant accomplishment nonetheless and a progression indicating that the Green & Reds are getting their act together. That Kilbride GFC are again making gradual progress is beyond question. This, of course, should come as no surprise. After all, we are talking about a club that won junior, intermediate and senior championships within four years at the start of the 1960s and went on to become the Royal County's dominant force! In more recent times, Kilbride have struggled to consolidate themselves as a Division Four team, flitting in and out of Division Five with frightening regularity. All that changed in 2005, however, when a powerful late surge was enough to clinch promotion to Division Three - a massive step in the right direction. A corner has been turned and the players should benefit immensely from playing at the higher level. Division Three fare is a better platform from which to launch a JFC bid and there's no reason in the world why Kilbride shouldn't be eying a place in the latter stages of the junior knockout competition in 2006. The glory days may have been consigned to distant memory, but this current crop is capable of bringing modern distinction to one of the county's most famous clubs. The ultimate aim is a junior championship and the south county men are currently better placed to achieve this than they have been in quite some time. Reflecting on the events of 2005, key player John Bruton accepts that escaping from Division Four could represent an important turning point: "Getting promoted was the high point of our year. Having said that, losing the Division Four final was disappointing. We'd love to have got our hands on some silverware to round it off, but we still managed our main objective which was promotion to Division Three." John spent the early part of the 2005 season operating at full back, but it wasn't until he was deployed in the more open spaces of midfield that Kilbride really started to blossom. That positional switch was one of the catalysts that sparked a run of five straight wins, which in turn saw promotion clinched and a league final date booked. There was more balance and purpose to the side with Bruton at centrefield and it's likely that this will become his regular berth from now on, especially with full back Conor Rennicks home from Australia. It's a challenge the amiable young footballer relishes. The 2005 Division 4 'A' league final took place at Walterstown on Saturday September 24, with Kilbride going under to Rathkenny by a single point, 0-11 to 1-7. Kilbride failed to perform at all until the final quarter and trailed by six points, 0-10 to 0-4, after 43 minutes. A goal two minutes from time offered brief hope but Kilbride had left it too late and Rathkenny claimed a deserved victory. It was disappointing for the losers, not least because they had beaten Rathkenny in the league section of the competition. "We just didn't perform to the same standards we had produced in the previous five games," says John. "We played some very good football to win promotion in the first place, but we were poor in the final. "We came late to win promotion. We were actually waiting for a result from another game, which went our way. It was a refreshing change to get that little bit of luck and we grabbed it with both hands! Ideally, we'd like to have capped it all with a piece of silverware, but the important thing is that we're up into Division Three and we'll be playing a higher grade of football in 2006." Kilbride made a decent start to the year with league wins over Drumree, Moynalty and Meath Hill but defeat to Skryne, Simonstown and Dunsany in three of their first four JFC outings suggested that the season would be far from plain sailing. Nonetheless, they continued to show good form on the resumption of the league with victories over Rathkenny and Clann na nGael before shipping successive defeats to Drumbaragh, St Brigid's and St Mary's (championship). Things really began to pick up again with impressive league wins over Moylagh (0-16 to 0-14), St Vincent's (2-11 to 2-8) and Curraha (1-15 to 0-8) and a championship defeat of Dunboyne as the Kilbride lads really found their stride towards the end of the year. A stunning league run earned them promotion before, unfortunately, they misfired in the Division 4 decider. Had John and his colleagues expected to do better in the junior championship? "Yes, some of the lads felt we should have pushed on a bit more. We had been close to the quarter-finals before and this year we thought we'd make the step-up but it just didn't happen. We were short a few players for some games and also suffered a couple of narrow defeats that could have gone either way. You really need to win those tight matches." Eamonn Clarke was over the team, with Patsy Farrell and Jason Sheedy as selectors. The management triumvirate did everything that could have been expected of them. "Everyone in the club was pleased with the effort they put in. They never missed a training session. They provided a lot of encouragement and they're three good men," John comments. What was the target set out for the year? "The main one was to get to Division Three and we accomplished that. As for the championship, we expected to get to the quarter-finals but fell short, which was disappointing. We lost a couple of early games to senior clubs who still had a lot of their stronger players involved and those defeats upset our whole plan. "We owned the ball for the second half against Dunsany but lost by a point and we also had a lot of possession against St Mary's but somehow managed to lose it." Still, consistency in the latter stages of the league leaves John convinced that Kilbride have the makings of a good team: "We got some new lads in this year and hopefully we'll get another couple in 2006, when we'll be pushing for a quarter-final place at least. "The irony was that we were playing a very good standard of football in late 2005, when the junior championship was at the knockout stage. If we'd made it through, we could have beaten anybody on our day the way we were playing." A former Leinster Vocational Schools medallist with both Ashbourne and Meath, John Bruton has been a regular on the Kilbride first team for four years. "We've become fitter and more competitive during that time," he opines. "Things have moved on and the average age of the current squad is still in the mid-twenties. We've just contested our first adult final since the glory days, and we've made it up to a higher grade, where we'll be testing ourselves against intermediate teams. That should bring us along and we're confident we can continue to progress." Tweet

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