New beginning in Magheracloone
December 31, 2009While they may have claimed one piece of silverware for their season, 2009 will be remembered as a nearly year for the Magheracloone Mitchels club. Defeated by the mighty Clontibret in the last four stage of the senior football championship, and missing out on a league semi-final place by a single point, it's fair to say Magheracloone aren't too far off the required pace needed that could see them back to the glory days of 2004.
That year Bernard Freeman had lined-out at wing-back for his native Magheracloone against Scotstown on county final day in the Farney County. After a hard afternoon's work, Bernard had played his own role in making history for the club. Little did he know then that five years later he would be assuming a role much more influential for Magheracloone GAA in a larger sense.
"This is my first year as chairman," explained Bernard. "Before that my cousin Tom had been chairman, but last year he asked me if I would take on the role because he was going for a position on the Monaghan Council.
"It has certainly been interesting, but there's quite a lot of work to it. The thing I find most about it in these difficult times is that it's hard to keep the finance coming in, but maybe that's just because of the way things are at present.
"I had been treasurer with another person in the club for two years before this so I did have a bit experience in that regard coming into it," he added.
Experience is something that Bernard has acquired on the field down the years for Magheracloone, but there aren't too many 34-year-old chairmen around nowadays that are still playing for their club.
"I was playing senior football with Magheracloone since I was 16," said Bernard.
"I decided to give it a rest a few years ago, but last year I played a bit of Junior B and came again back this year and togged out for the seniors in a few league games when I was needed."
After the disappointment of the 2008 season, a fresh approach was to be taken with the senior team as Dublin native Ciaran Conlon was installed as the Magheracloone's new manager. As ever, expectations were high for the new season and an early win at home to Truagh in the senior football league was the perfect start for Magheracloone at the start of April.
The next day out they would go one better when they travelled to Latton and registered a 2-10 to 1-9 victory. A one-point defeat away to Ballybay followed, but Conlon's team were still within a very decent chance of making the last four for the Owen Ward Cup by the time the championship came around, despite star forward Tommy Freeman missing a number of games through suspension after being sent off against Derry in the Ulster SFC.
It meant that Magheracloone were carrying momentum with them into their opening championship encounter with neighbours Carrickmacross.
"We got off to a great start in that game and were in a comfortable enough lead at half-time, but they came back at us in the second-half," said Bernard.
"We were under pressure from them throughout the second-half and in the end we won it by a point with a brilliant free from Tommy Freeman in injury-time."
Not for the first time, Freeman had come to Magheracloone's rescue and sent them into a mouth-watering quarter-final meeting with Latton.
In what was another hard fought game, the Mitchels men started the game brightly but again were slow out of the traps for the second-half. In the end, it was a strong finish which saw them emerge victorious by the minimum and seal their place into the last four of the county.
In the semi-final, Conlon's team were faced with the task of overcoming favourites Clontibret if they were to advance the county final. While the result felt inevitable for some, Bernard recalls feeling confident at half-time during the game.
"We only played to about 50 percent of out potential in the first-half and were down by two points at half-time, so in a way we were kind of happy with that," said the chairman.
"We were hopeful that we could up our game in the second-half but, to their credit, Clontibret were just too good and ended up winning the game comfortably. They (Clontibret) did their homework and brought Dessie Mone to centre-back where he was solid for them and up front Conor McManus ran the show."
The defeat had brought another championship campaign to an end without silverware for Magheracloone, and although their chairman was disappointed afterwards he was still adamant that there was no shame in losing to Clontibret, who went on to win another title.
"It was disappointing to lose, but, in all honesty, we were beaten by the better team and it showed with Clontibret's run to the Ulster semi-final afterwards," he said.
"I'd also say that Conor McManus will have to get Senior Player of the Year this year because he has been absolutely fantastic for both club and county."
Magheracloone's season wasn't over though. They required a single point from their three remaining games to book their place into the semi-finals of the senior football league and give one last push for silverware before the season's end.
"We had three games left to try and get a point from to get into the semi-finals and lost all three, which was really disappointing. We had lost Tommy Freeman through injury and we just couldn't seem to get a result after we went out of the championship, which is often the case with teams, but there's no defending it we should have made the semi-finals this year," he admitted.
However, Bernard does cite Tommy Freeman's suspension as a contributing factor to the reason why Magheracloone hadn't qualified for the last four if the SFL before the championship's throw-in.
"When you look back on the fact that we missed out on a league semi-final place by a single point, you can't help think that if Tommy had been available to us we'd have been there," he stated.
"He got sent off against Derry in June and wasn't allowed to play for us for 12 weeks. Not only was he not available to us or Monaghan, but when a player comes back after being out of action for that long it takes a while for him to get his sharpness back.
"Tommy is worth four of five points ever game for whatever team he plays with and had we had him available to us we would have been in the semi-finals, and who is to say what would have happened from there."
Freeman's suspension was undoubtedly a talking point in Maghercloone's season, but his first cousin tends not to focus entirely on the negative aspects.
"James Ward had an outstanding year for us at centre-back this season," said Bernard. "As well as that, Gavin Doogan was called into the county senior panel at the start of the season along with Damien and Tommy (Freeman) and Shane Duffy who have all been in there for years now.
"Paul Lambe was also apart of the Under 21 panel and we have two very good prospects in Christopher Burns and Ronan Freeman coming through, so they are players to look forward to seeing in the future hopefully," he added.
As well as that, there seems to be real progress being made further down the ranks with the club's Under 13 and 14 footballers impressing in their respective grades.
In June, Magheracloone's Under 14 crop captured the Division Two Championship title by defeating Sean McDermotts in the final in emphatic fashion, with a 6-11 to 0-9 victory in Drumhowan.
The team managed by Eugene McMahon, John Marron and Donal Kindlon had started their campaign in march and won all their games to finish top of the table and advance to the semi-finals, where they defeated Cremartin by six points.
In the final against Seans, ace forward Sean McClory netted an astonishing four goals, which were backed up by Alan McCaughey and Mitchel Tuite raising the other two green flags to confirm the win and a piece of silverware to covet in their club's season.
Three months later many of the same players were back in action again when the Under 13s met Emyvale in a decider which they were unfortunate to finish second best in.
"Next year we will be looking to move the club forward and win a bit of silverware. The club will try and move forward and we want to keep the young players there and keep them away from other distractions.
"Hopefully, the seniors can continue to lead by example, because when you see senior players playing well the younger players often try and aspire to be like them and play for the club," the chairman concluded. Tweet
