Aghabog club Secretary Damien Murphy admits that he finds it difficult to identify a silver lining on the cloud that was the 2004 season for his beloved club. But he fervently believes that things can be turned around in the next 12 months. The club's Annual General Meeting is only hours away but Aghbog's ultra efficient Secretary Damien Murphy is generosity itself. Despite the advancing clock, he affords a desperate hack the opportunity to get a foretaste of his address. Putting a gloss on a mediocre year isn't something that Damien has majored in but his experience and administrative nous gets him there quite comfortably. "2004 wasn't our best year, to say the least. Getting relegated from senior to intermediate put a big dampner on the year but it wasn't all doom and gloom. "We took part in the new Ulster Senior League, had our Dinner Dance in February which was well supported, honoured Declan Smyth as the 2003 Intermediate Player of the Year and also Brendan Brady last May on the 25th anniversary of his captaincy of the Monaghan team that won the Ulster championship in '79." And along the way, the Aghabog club received tremendous support, not least from generous benefactors such as Pat Brady Contractors, Sean Gleeson Construction and Clones Credit Union. Yes, on the face of it the Aghabog gaels had a year best forgotten overall but beneath the veneer of senior championship failure lies a vibrant club very much alive and kicking. Perhaps we should have reckoned that 2004 was going to put a jinx on the club's fortunes at the highest level. After all, who should the club be pitted against in the blue riband senior championship than Scotstown-bossed Sean McCague. You couldn't have made it up. McCague, the former President of the GAA, left to square up with his prodigies Gerard Caulfield and Dermot Maguire in the Aghabog camp. Irony of ironies. "The connection between the two teams added a bit of spice to the game but, either way, morale was good in the camp in the run up to the Scotstown game. "Being the underdogs suited us and having lost to them earlier in the league in Aghabog by just a single point, we felt we'd be there or thereabouts at the final whistle. "We thought we were in with a shout of getting off to a winning start in the championship. "We held them well for most of the game. It was close all through but then we ran out of steam and they scored four points without reply in the last ten minutes and that was that." The back door later offered an escape clause for Aghabog but, sadly, Murphy's favourites exited the scene via the trap door instead. Aghabog entered the last chance saloon in Scotstown with Sean McDermotts hoping to play the hangman's role to a tee. As things panned out, unfortunately for Aghabog, the noose was perfectly made and the job was a good one from the Threemilehouse contingent's perspective. "Seans led from start to finish and got a couple of goals that left us with it all to do," Damien recalls. In reflecting on the defeat to Seans, Damien - son of former Aghabog stalwart Macartan Murphy - expresses regret that Aghabog's finest didn't manage to sufficiently rise to the challenge. "There's a great rivalry between us and having beaten them in the league, morale was high going into the championship match. "But, if anything, we ended up playing better against Scotstown than we did against Seans. "We just didn't have the power or the strength to compete on the day," says Damien now entering his sixth year as club secretary. Did that league win over Seans give the Aghabog lads a false sense of superiority one wonders? "Maybe some players might have been a bit complacent going into the Seans game but, in fairness, the team was hampered by injuries during the year and so preparations weren't ideal. "Both Lorcan Kelly and Brendan O'Brien were in trouble with injuries during the year and the retirement of Sean McPhillips hit the team hard too because the club hasn't got the strength in depth that some other clubs have." Damien explains that the twin championship defeats knocked the stuffing out of the senior team. And combined with an indifferent league campaign, which saw them immersed in the bottom two with Inniskeen at season's-end, a bleak canvass portrayed the 2004 season for Aghabog's premier football team. By November, Aghabog's IFC final win over Doohamlet seemed a long time ago. Sadly the club's first senior championship campaign in something like 50 years proved all too brief. But far be it from the club secretary to be critical of the senior team. "The team is going through a transitional period. "There's a lot of young lads on the team and they need a bit more power and experience before they're at their best. He believes the camaraderie that was generated by the senior squad's pre-season trip to the coast of Spain will, sooner rather than later, manifest itself on the field of play. "The lads enjoyed themselves on the holiday. "They were given the holiday because they'd won the intermediate championship the year before and the fact that things never really took off during the year wasn't anything to do with them getting the trip. "The trip had the opposite effect - it boosted morale. In his review of 2004, Damien expresses more than a little satisfaction with the form the club showed in the novel South Ulster Senior League. Over the course of the competition, Aghabog drew with Inniskeen, lost to Mullaghbawn, drew with Belturbet and lost to Brookeborough. Damien makes it clear that he hopes that the competition will continue to grow and prosper. "I think it should be developed and encouraged. We had some mixed results in the competition but it was great experience overall for the players, especially those who never played inter-county football. They enjoyed competing against teams from other counties and the standard of football was good too. "I think the home and away idea is good - it helps generate a good social aspect to the games with players coming together for the refreshments after the game. "I'd like to see it extended to incorporate intermediate and junior teams in the same counties as well." There's little doubt but that everyone belonging to Aghabog see themselves as capable of playing on a regular basis against the best of the rest from neighbouring counties. And the club also believes that it should be playing senior football. "That's the ambition. We're very determined to get back into senior ranks. "I played in 1994 when we went up senior, we had eight fellas on the bench who were capable of coming in and doing a great job. "If we can get that same strength in depth again, we will be able to get back up senior and stay there. "We have everything else in place that goes with being a successful senior club like a good social complex and good support from the community." The back-door system may help in that regard? "The back door does help the smaller clubs, no doubt about it. It's been a success since it was introduced and should be kept in place." Meanwhile on the county front, Damien is relishing the prospect of Monaghan's new think-tank getting the very best out of the talent available in the county. He has high praise for team-manager Seamus McEnaney and also his backroom team of Gerry McCarville (a former Aghabog team-manager), Bernie Murray and Gerry Hoey. "Definitely the stuff is there along the sideline and they'll leave no stone unturned in getting things going. "If the county can progress past the first round in 2005, I think most supporters will deem that a success. "But patience will be the key. "It could take at least three years for the county to get back to winning the Ulster title." Tweet

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