Pascal Smyth is recognised as one of the most accomplished footballers to have emerged from Rockcorry in the last twenty years. For the last three years, he's been trying to work the oracle from the sideline though. Kevin Carney reports. Months later and team-manager Pascal Smyth can still barely believe that Rock allowed Clones squirm off the hook. With time almost up in their Intermediate Football Championship quarter-final clash, the village side led by seven points. It looked for all the world as if Rock were on a roll. A place in the last four was almost tangible. However, Rock were to be pegged back in dramatic style over the course of the next six minutes of injury time. Two Clones goals in the 35th and 36th minutes of the second half tore up the script, big-time. It was rough justice for the green and whites who played some of their best football of the year but had nothing to show for it. The goal that clinched a 2-10 to 0-16 draw for Clones still irks manager Smyth. He is adamant it shouldn't have counted but denies taking umbrage spells sour grapes. "It just shouldn't have been allowed in my book. Declan McKernan juggled the ball amidst a goalmouth scramble but couldn't manage to fist it. All he could do was throw the ball in and, unbelievably, the referee allowed it - it was a terrible end to a disastrous last few minutes for us," recalls the man who captained Rock to win Dr. Ward Cup and Junior Championship double in 1982. Pascal has watched that Clones match time and time again on video and is more convinced about the illegitimacy of that last-gasp leveller each time he watches the action in slow motion. He blames no one for Rock's failure to clinch the tie and, instead, declares that "it was a costly lesson." Rockcorry led from pillar to post in Scotstown that day in late August yet had to return to the same venue the following Sunday to go through it all again. Pascal takes up the story of how Rock were rampant early on only for the Clones cavalry to come charging through at the death to change things around in dramatic fashion once again. "For the first 20 minutes we were all over them. We went seven points in front and it could have been more but the Clones goalkeeper pulled off a great save during that spell from Paul McKeown. Clones scored the first point of the game but weren't in it then for the next 20 minutes. "We were dominating midfield, picking up a lot of loose ball and looking dangerous up front. It's hard to believe that we allowed them to come back at us again," Pascal sighs. In the end, the route one football employed by Clones was to reap a rich dividend. The border town fought back to trail by just 1-5 to 1-6 at the interval. The writing was again on the wall for Rock but despite the team's best efforts, Clones proceeded to win out on a 3-10 to 1-13 scoreline. The post-mortems in Rockcorry continued for a long time. "We tried to cut out the supply line to Declan McKernan but we didn't managed to do so. And when he got the sort of ball any forward would love, he thrived on it. In the end though, our lack of consistency in games really worked against us. Over the season, that inconsistency was perhaps our greatest weakness." But Rockcorry were the fancied team and ought to have beaten Clones surely? "Yeh, most people would have had us down as favourites to go through. Maybe there was a certain amount of complacency among the lads going into the Clones game. They were second from the bottom of the table and had lost their opening game in the championship to Carrick. But we should have realised that they were improving as the year went on and that they hadn't Declan McKernan for the early part of the league. "They went on to beat Eire Og and then against the Harps they came from behind to draw with them in the first game and in the replay came from behind to win it so we had been warned," adds Pascal, a member of the All-Ireland winning Masters team in 1998. Rock had been going well in the league though. Always within striking range of a play-off berth, the team - minus the support of the holidaying Smyth - had recovered from losing by 1-10 to 1-11 to Drumhowan in the first round of the championship to beat Emyvale (0-10 to 0-9) in the second round. "We had to work really hard to hold out against Emyvale. They probably considered themselves very unlucky not to have at least gotten a draw and Darren Farmer did have an opportunity to win it for them but good work by Keith Daly prevented him from doing damage. We probably rode our luck that day." And then came the clash with Aghabog: "Although we only beat them by a point, I thought our performance that day was out of the top drawer. The lads were up for it because it was a local derby match and they produced what I would have felt was the best display that I have seen them give in the three years that I've been with them. "Practically every aspect of their play was good. The wide, open spaces of Clones suited them and Mickey Conlon was particularly exceptional that day," Pascal recalls. Apart from the aforementioned inconsistency, Pascal feels that at times during the season, Rock's relative inexperience negated their best efforts at pulling through when things were at their tightest in the closing stages of the various matches. He appreciates though that the passage of time will help greatly in that regard. "We also showed a certain degree of naiviety at times during matches which meant that we gave away needless frees. I also felt we needed to show a more ruthless streak in matches. We never quite managed to kill teams off when we had them on the rack and that weakness cost us dear. The team has to learn that it needs to be able to hammer home its advantage otherwise it will always be liable to a sucker punch," the 44-year old former senior county panelist opines. But with young rising stars like Paul McKeown, Glen Rooney, Stevie Lynch, Paul Matthews and Martin Carroll likely to be outstanding fixtures on the Rock team in the coming years, Pascal feels that the team has youth on its side. "The major concern we would have for the coming year and thereafter would be the availability of away-based players like Drogheda-based Kieran O'Harte and Kieran McCormill, Pauric Carroll in Portlaoise, Mickey Conlon in Laytown and Barry Patterson. I don't know how long those fellas can continue to give the same level of commitment they have been giving up to now. I can understand how difficult it is for those fellas to make it back to Rock for training and even matches. "We have a pretty small pool at the best of times but if we had to make do without some of our away-based players, our pick would be even smaller and limited." Reflecting on the championship season in its entirety, Pascal believes that the back-door system didn't do the club any disservice. He reckons it's changed times for Rockcorry to be playing five games in the intermediate championship. Only three years ago, he reminds us, the team was progressing at a pretty pedestrian pace at junior level and well down everyone's pecking order in terms of teams fancied to be knocking on the door leading to the final stages of the intermediate championship. A player who won a Dublin intermediate championship medal with St. Brigid's of Blanchardstown in 1990, Pascal transferred back to his native Rock at the age of 38 just in time to help the club win the Junior league in 1996. A tigerish, tough defender who didn't stand on ceremony but who was good enough at his peak to be part of the Monaghan senior set-up under Sean McCague during the eighties, Pascal was a totally committed footballer and expects his charges to give it their all too. During his playing days, the now St. Macartan's College-based schoolteacher was recognised as a leading light with the county juniors and one of the most able of club players in Monaghan. The last few years he has become known as quite a hard task master on the training field who insists on working with the ball to the optimum degree So how does he compare club football in Monaghan now to that which pertained some 20 years ago? "Standards have improved all-round. The fitness levels of players nowadays are much superior to what was evident in the early eighties." Pascal's playing days are long since over. More's the pity. "I try and keep abreast of all the latest coaching methods. I've done the foundation and level one courses. I think that's as much as I'm fit for now." Given the man's competitive streak and penchant for keeping in shape, one wonders. Tweet

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