Battled bravely on both fronts
December 30, 2009impressive but ultimately frustrating season.
You don't always get your just rewards in football. Ask Clones. In 2009, St Tiernachs were the most consistent junior club in Monaghan, but their all-out promotion bid came up just short as they fell at the semi-final hurdle in both the league and championship. Those two narrow defeats to Sean McDermotts and Emyvale respectively were the defining moments of their season, leaving the players and management team feeling a little hard done by when all was said and done. However, the positive factor that can be salvaged from the simmering ashes of the year is that the team functioned well enough as a unit to suggest they're capable of landing major silverware in the year ahead.
Clones finished top of the junior league with 25 points but lost their semi-final to fourth-placed Seans (who were eight points adrift on the final table) by 1-11 to 1-9 in mid-November. Earlier in the season, they'd been similarly pipped in a JFC semi-final, losing 2-12 to 1-13 to eventual champions Emyvale, who subsequently went on a wonderful run outside the county. Thus, despite their commendable efforts all year long, Clones didn't even get a final appearance … this seems like a travesty, but that's how sport goes sometimes.
The backroom team in '09 comprised former Fermanagh and Newtownbutler player Colm Courtney as manager and local selectors Gerry Rehill and Donal Quigley. Gerry also played for a while for Newtownbutler, winning SFC honours in the Erne County. His return to his home club in '09 gave everyone in the Clones clubhouse a major lift and the players delivered a wonderful response only to come up marginally short.
Donal Quigley is also a former first-team stalwart, who also sits on the club executive committee. He's served Clones brilliantly down through the years and the Rockcorry-based National School principal was disappointed that the players under his watch didn't get greater rewards in '09: "The league table doesn't lie and to finish top and then get nothing is hard to take. But that's the way it goes and we benefited from that system in the past, so we can't complain. There's nothing we can do about it now apart from regroup and get ready for next year.
"Our aim at the start of the year was to get promoted by any means, preferably the championship, but we were attacking it on both fronts. We got to two semi-finals but couldn't quite get over the line. We lost to Oram in the first round of the championship and that came as a real shock to us because we had beaten them well in the league the previous week. We then went through the back door and had a good win against Killeevan and a really good victory over Currin in Scotstown.
"That set us up for a semi-final meeting with Emyvale and we were on top for long periods of that game and went three points ahead coming towards the end. But they got the goal they needed and finished stronger to win by two points. Looking at how well they did since that game makes the disappointment even worse because we know we were a match for them and we could have beaten them."
Clones, 2009 JFC semi-final V Emyvale: Ciarán Morgan; John Jenkins, Eoin Kelly, Danny Rooney; Patrick McCarville, Fintan Kelly, Darragh Holland; Ross Adamson, John McDonald; Adrian Alford (0-3), Darren Freeman (0-6), Colm Connolly (1-1); Micháel Treanor, Declan McKernan (0-1), Darragh Graham (0-1). Subs: Declan McQuaid (0-1), Colin McCaughey.
Instead of rolling over and feeling sorry for themselves, Clones now switched their focus to the league and made a valiant attempt to earn promotion by claiming the Dr Ward Cup. "We tried to regroup in the league and got on a run and ended up finishing top of the table," Donal continues. "There was a two-month gap between our last league game and the semi-final and we had completely lost our momentum by the time we played our semi-final against the Seans, whom we had beaten twice in the league stage."
Declan McKernan got the goal that had Clones in touch at the break, 1-5 to 1-3. With 14 men, they battled well in terrible conditions in the second half and points from Colm Connolly, Adrian Alford, Darragh Holland and McKernan saw them take the lead with ten minutes to go. With the game moving into injury time, Clones still held the lead but three late points from Seans saw them through to the final.
Clones, 2009 Dr Ward Cup semi-final V Sean McDermotts: Ciarán Morgan; John Jenkins, Eoin Kelly, Danny Rooney; Micháel Treanor, Darragh Holland (0-1), Patrick McCarville; Fintan Kelly, Ross Adamson; Colm Connolly (0-3), John McDonald, Darragh Graham; Adrian Alford (0-3), Declan McKernan (1-2), Kieran Kierans. Subs: Colin McCaughey, Fintan Cunningham.
There is no end of belief and confidence in Clones that they can go one better in 2010, but it won't be easy either, as Donal admits: "There are some strong teams in junior already and we have Corduff and Cremartin coming down, who are also decent sides, so it's going to be very competitive. Every team is improving every year and you have to look at the likes of Killanny, who came from nowhere this year and will probably be even better in 2010. So there are no easy games and we're under no illusions…"
One of the strengths of the current Clones side is that they've a perfect blend of youth and experience. "We have a fairly young team now since we lost some of our more experienced campaigners like Michael Slowey, Brian Quinn, William Gillard, Fergal McPharland, James McKernan and myself. Those lads have all retired since we were intermediate and we have experienced a large turnover of players with the likes of Colm Connolly, Adrian Alford, Darragh Holland and the Kelly brothers coming to the fore to complement the more-experienced lads like Michael Treanor, Declan McKernan and Packie McCarville. There's a good mix there and with a bit of luck they could have got more out of it last year.
"They really knuckled down and you couldn't fault their commitment. Maybe they lacked that bit of cuteness and experience to see it through in the end, so hopefully next year they will have learned from that. I believe they would have been well able to cope with the demands of intermediate football if they'd gone up, so I'm really hoping they can make the final step next year."
A member of a well-known Currin family, Donal Quigley played his juvenile football with the Sons of St Patrick before moving to Clones in 1992 and representing the north county town club for the next 17 years. Lining out mostly at corner forward, he collected a MFC medal in '92 and Ward Cups in '99 and '03. Playing-wise, he concedes that his career will probably be limited to a bit of junior football now, having lost his ongoing battle with a cruciate ligament problem.
As for the progress being made by Clones on and off the field of play, Donal is full of praise for the tremendous work of club chairman Tom Kelly: "He's a great chairman and a great football man. We wanted for nothing this year. The team got absolutely everything they asked for. With Tom at the helm, the football comes first. All the teams and all the players are looked after and everybody is pulling in the same direction. Hopefully we can now take the next step of gaining promotion to intermediate football and then this young team can move forward from there." Tweet
