Scotstown's new team-captain for 2003 is Nicholas Corrigan. Contrary to what some in the county may think, the true blue clubman reckons the former kingpins aren't that far removed from the county's football peleton. Nicholas Corrigan cut a dash as Monaghan sped to a morale-boosting win over neighbours Tyrone. The 1-10 to 2-6 scoreline in favour of Corrigan and co didn't exactly energise the media's headline makers up in the capital. Close season encounters don't make good copy, they'll tell you. For all concerned with the Monaghan camp though, the team's narrow win over the O'Neill County at the official opening of Currin's splendid new playing pitch and club rooms last October hinted at a new beginning. The suitably enthusiastic Corrigan sincerely hopes so: "It was the county team's first get-together under Colm Coyle and a good result to start off with. Hopefully, things will continue to progress during the coming year with a new panel in place and everyone moving in the same direction. It would be nice if everyone in the county made themselves available for selection. "There have been a small number of players who have dropped off the scene for their own reasons in the last few years but if we got those fellas to commit themselves to the team, the county panel would be much stronger this year," the Scotstown ace enthuses. On the back of what transpired in 2002 and ahead of the commencement of the new season, it is clear though that the 24-year old versatile footballer is first and foremost thinking of closer to home when mention of crystal ball-gazing gets him thinking. The Blues are very close to his heart, you see. Although his daliance with soccer was noted and remarked upon in GAA circles in Monaghan and further afield, Nicholas stresses that he hopes to master the Gaelic game rather than operate on different fronts and perhaps fall between two stools. The fact that he has taken over from last year's Scotstown senior captain Seamus Mullen as the leader-on-the field in 2003 is significant. Corrigan, a true blue, is honoured to have been afforded the captaincy. "Gaelic football comes first with me even though I did play a bit of soccer with Old Cross (Athletic) and Monaghan United in recent years. There was never any question that I would quit playing Gaelic. It was a game I played when my commitments on the football front were over. "Two years ago when the club scene in Monaghan ran its course and I wasn't involved with the county team, I was approached by Monaghan United in the autumn of 2001 about togging out for them for a few matches to see if it suited both them and me. "I was keen to try and see what the standard was like and how well I'd take to it and I played for them for a while but then on the first Friday in January 2002, I got a phone call from Jack McCarville asking me to join the panel which I was delighted to do," adds Nicholas who first donned the county jersey as a minor in 1996 under the aegis of Kevin 'Paddy' Treanor and in the company of such would-be luminaries as Kieran Tavey and John Paul Mone, among others. Nephew of Austin Corrigan, outgoing chairman of Scotstown GFC, Nicholas is likely to prove to be a more than useful cog in the wheel being engineered by new Monaghan supremo Colm Coyle - a three-times All-Ireland SFC medallist - from Seneschalstown in County Meath. Fast, skilful and imbued with a decent football brain, Nicholas Corrigan may well catch the eye of the copy-makers in Dublin before too long. Certainly if he can reproduce some of his best club form in the white and blues of Monaghan, then everyone will be happy. For him to become a regular fixture in the new county team manager's set-up, Nicholas understands that he'll have to make a sizeable impression at club level also. Like an entire county, he can barely believe that it's approaching the tenth anniversary of Scotstown's last blue riband win at senior championship level. Back then he was making waves at under 14 level but he remembers the great buzz there was about the parish. "It was brilliant back then for the club and the parish and the likes of myself and a lot of others never thought that the good times wouldn't continue. Winning the senior championship seemed to come like second nature to the players but when the success dried up, it came as a real culture shock to all the young ones at the club." For his part, three years after Scotstown's last great hurrah at senior championship level (1993), Nicholas made his bow with the club seniors at the age of 17 in an Owen Ward Cup clash with deadly rivals 'Blayney. He had a real baptism of fire that day, being marked by countyman Edwin Murphy, and ending up on the losing side by four points. To date, Nicholas' sideboard is much too much bare for his liking and all Scotstown supporters to boot. Save an Under 21 championship medal, Nicholas hasn't any silverware to show for his labours for his native club. He fervently hopes that better times are around the corner for Scotstown seniors. "For the last few years, people have been saying that we're a young team but maybe this coming year the same people will be expecting us to produce the goods. Maybe their view will be that we're experienced enough and old enough now as a team to take on any other team in the county. "We were a bit unlucky to lose to 'Blayney by a point in the first round of the championship last summer. Losing Damien F. McKenna in the first half meant that we were always going to be up against it for the rest of the game and that's the way it worked out although I don't think many people in the county would have been surprised. "The Ballybay game was probably our poorest of the year even though we only lost by a point again. We had three good wins in the league in the run-up to the championship clash with Ballybay - including one away to 'Blayney and one against Magheracloone - but maybe those results left us a bit over-confident. "Maybe it was a bit like the pride before the fall. In some ways though those few results showed up how inconsistent we were during 2002." One of a group of Scotstown players including Gerard Corrigan, Brian McGinnity and Damien F. McKenna who are destined to come in the reckoning for a regular berth in Colm Coyle's scheme of things in the coming years, Nicholas says that he has no doubt but that the current Scotstown senior players have the hunger and ambition necessary to make life uncomfortable for the Clontibret, Blayney, and Magheracloones of this world. "It's just a matter of us all gelling together and playing well at the same time. Maybe for some players, football isn't the be all and end all that it used to be for those playing in the really successful days for the club but there are a lot of fellas currently playing who are as committed as anyone who has played for the club in the past. "Times have changed though and I can understand fellas deciding not to stay in on a Saturday night or deciding that it's too much hassle trying to get home from work in Dublin or home from college for training and matches. We have a lot more away-based players at the club now. "I think nearly all of the players who won Ulster club titles for the club back in the eighties were working close to home. Times have changed in a lot of ways and there are a lot more teams on a par now. Years ago, the senior championship was all about Scotstown or 'Blayney. That's not the case any longer. "Even the likes of Latton, Truagh and Donaghmoyne would fancy their chances of having a good run at winning the title in the coming year. Anyone of five or six teams would be hopeful of winning the title and it would take a brave man to write any of them off at the start of the year." There is a notion within the Scotstown support though that Nicholas along with Brian McGinnity and Damien F. McKenna need more consistent support up front if the blues are to give their rivals the blues in 2003. The expected return of Brian McCarville to the engine-room will be a boon to the club's cause though. "The club is very strong in terms of administration and organisation so it's up to us, the players, to match the progress off the field with some success on the field. "We have some of the best facilities any club in the country has, the two training pitches have been re-seeded and the main field sanded. Everything is in place for the championship to come back to Scotstown." And the six million dollar question; can the blues make the winners' enclosure at the highest level in 2003? "If we weren't in the championship, I would put my money on Clontibret to win it out because they've a great bunch of players who have a lot of football in them and who are all the same age. The back-door system doesn't allow for too many upsets in the championship and that means that the fancied teams are difficult to put out. But we'll do our best and maybe we'll not be that far off the mark at the end of the day." Sherry toasts underage brigade The Kilpatrick Cup remains Scotstown property. In an otherwise mediocre year for the male footballers of Tydavnet parish, the retention of the prestigious Under 13 cup was welcome indeed. Kevin Carney reports The thirst for another blue riband senior title win continues unabated down Scotstown way. Arch-rivals 'Blayney have won a raft of senior championship titles over the past decade and now wannabes like Clontibret and Magheracloone are threatening to propel the Blues further down the pecking order. Scotstown may have the President of the GAA within its ranks but patience is running thin on the ground in the parish of Tydavnet. "Where's all the young talent gone," is the clarion call from the faithful. Those au fait with the grass roots section of the famed club would tell you 'they're on their way.' And certainly after a patent run of barren years at underage level, the success of Scotstown's minor team in winning the 2001 county league and the erstwhile back-to-back success of the under 21s seems to point to much more lucrative times for the club at adult level in the not too distant future. And the sense of optimism sweeping across the bows of the north Monaghan gaeldom has been added to by the achievement in 2002 of the club's Under 13 Kilpatrick Cup crew. In steam-rolling their way to the winners' enclosure, the latest crop of Scotstown starlets retained the title the club won so superbly in 2001 when after a memorable campaign they beat 'Blayney by 2-9 to 0-10 in the county decider. Reflecting on the Blues' latest Kilpatrick Cup triumph, team-manager Gerard Sherry is mindful of the significance of garnering another important piece of silverware at underage level. "Like any other club trying to build for the future, it's important that the club is there or thereabouts when the prizes are being given out. We haven't had the kind of success that we'd have liked over recent years at underage level and because of that there has been added pressure on the senior teams over the last few years to pull something out of the hat so that we'd have something to put in the trophy cabinet. Winning the Kilpatrick Cup has helped brighten things up at the club in 2002." The Under 13 boss rates the outgoing Kilpatrick Cup-winning squad very highly and he was always optimistic that they'd be hard to stop in attempting to hold onto the title. "At the start of the year we felt that Monaghan Harps would be our most difficult opponents and the biggest threat to us retaining the title and that's the way it worked out. We knew they had a very good squad but we were confident that if our lads played to their abilities, we'd be okay." Getting together for the first time in early August, there was a buzz about the camp. Team-manager Sherry, in tandem with his selectors, Mickey Caulfield, Michael Owen McMahon and Gene McKenna, made sure that all the sessions were enjoyable; that the drills undertaken by the players were varied and testing; and that every player was made to an integral cog in the wheel. In truth, by the time the whole thing was done and dusted in mid-October, no-one in the whole county were in the slightest bit surprised that the Blues had managed to give the best of the rest the blues. "The policy was to have the lads working with the ball as much as possible during training. Any fitness work we did with them was with a ball apart from some of the stamina work which we did in the very early part of the season. "We felt the lads were quite fit anyway and it was only a matter of keeping them ticking over in terms of their fitness and improving their ball-skills and tactical awareness as the season went on," Gerard recalls. And didn't the twice, sometimes thrice-weekly sessions pay off! In a hugely impressive campaign, Scotstown's pride and joy only lost one game en route to lifting the cup - a credit to the wonderful commitment demonstrated by the panel of players and their think-tank team. But what did the players themselves, in specific terms, bring to bear which made them so much a cut above the rest in the Kilpatrick Cup competition? "Their attitude, for one, was spot-on. From the very first training session we had to our last get-together, we hadn't anything less than a 90% turnout of the players. They were all very easy to manage. "Once we set down the ground rules at the start of the season, we had very little problems as regards discipline." Imbued with a winning mentality and buoyed by some excellent coaching, the Scotstown class of elite Under 13 footballers thundered their way to the winner's podium with some classy displays embellished by handsome victory margins. The league games came thick and fast. Five games within a fortnight kept everyone on their toes and a brace of challenge matches against Errigal Ciaran (Tyrone) and Cullaville (Armagh) gave the would-be county winners a perspective of how well matters were progressing in terms of assembling a forceful combination. As things transpired, none of the teams who locked horns with Scotstown at Under 13 A level managed to outgun the defending champions. And with a prize of a trip next June to the national Feile na nOg competition up for grabs, there was no more incentive needed for Scotstown's young guns to realise their potential! Scotstown always looked a shoe-in for Kilpatrick Cup honours in 2002. Comprehensive victories in the qualifying rounds of the competition over the likes of Truagh (4-14 to 0-8); Carrickmacross (3-23 to 0-2); Cremartin (2-19 to 4-6); and Blayney Faughs in the semi-final (3-19 to 3-1); only served to underline the notion held countywide that Scotstown were the team all others needed to beat if they were to lift the cup. "We chalked up a lot of big scores but, in fairness, we were strong all around the field. We had a very strong spine down the middle in particular but all sectors of the team worked hard and came out on top in all their matches," enthuses Gerard, fulsome in his praise of the helping hand afforded the Kilpatrick contingent on several occasions by club coach Brendan Lillis. For his part, the former Scotstown 'keeper and SFC medallist from 1992' and '93 says that apart from the aforementioned game with Cremartin, his charges weren't tested at all in the qualifying rounds. "The lads were made to work that bit harder against Cremartin and that was no harm as it gave them a reminder that no matter how well they had done in the last match they couldn't just take things for granted." And then there was the league meeting with would-be co-finalists Monaghan Harps. Without the services of such high-profile players as William Carroll, Shane Maguire and Niall McKenna, Scotstown went down to their county town opponents. "The Harps' game gave us the chance to make full use of our panel of players but its was still a bit of a disappointment to lose even though at that stage we were already sure of going through. " We always reckoned that we'd be meeting them in the final anyway so being beaten by them only helped us rid the players of any complacency they might have had after winning so many matches so comfortably." Bolstered by a fine winning pedigree, Scotstown weren't about to throw away their chance of glory though. Sherry and co. were happy that their charges possessed the necessary ambition, football nous and character to enable them to go the distance. Backed by decent support from the parents of the children, Scotstown granted home venue to the Harps for the final and with typical efficiency and skill saw to it that the Rooskey venue was rocking to the sound of Scotstown supporters' roars at the final whistle. The Blues romped home 4-7 to 1-6 winners. It was all that their team-manager had hoped for and more. "We proved ourselves the better team by far on the day. We were never behind at any stage and once the Harps failed to convert their chances during a fine ten minute spell for them, I knew they had shot their bolt. We had a nicely cushioned lead at half-time and at that stage we knew that we were well in control and could only really throw the game away. "It was a case of asking the lads at half-time in the dressing-room for more of the same in the second half and they came up trumps in that sense." Indeed, neutral observers at the final were heard to say that the game was all but done and dusted once Eoin Heaphey and James Connolly-Hughes had found the net for Scotstown in the first half. The writing was well and truly on the wall by that juncture. Attacking at pace while in possession and chasing and defending aggressively when the opposition had the ball - of such tactics are award-winning achievements composed. So how will the 2002 Kilpatrick Cup squad do in the years to come? Our man Sherry isn't keen on the crystal ball-gazing antics but suggests that everyone will be more enlightened as to their potential after they represent their county at next summer's Feile competition. Meanwhile other Scotstown clubmen point out though that when mentor Sherry helped oversee Scotstown's Kilpatrick Cup success all of ten years ago, such current Scotstown senior luminaries as Mark McKenna, Anton McKenna, Damien McKenna, Damien F. McKenna, David McCague, Declan McCarville and Shane McCarville were on board. The omens are good so and while extrapolation is an inexact science, one can confidently predict that more than a handful of the Kilpatrick Cup-winning crew will make a decisive impact at adult level for the famed Blues before the decade is out. For the record, the sure-fire hits from Scotstown who blew away all before them in the 2002 Kilpatrick Cup were none other than; Mark Daly, Fintan Treanor, Niall McKenna, Conor Hamill, William Carroll, Richard McNally, Gavin Turley, Mark McDevitt, Shane Maguire, Oran Heaphey, Darragh Toal, Daniel McNally, Donal McCague, Adrian Carbin, Conor Caulfield, Peter O'Hara, James Connolly-Hughes, Kieran Hughes, Barry McMeel, Padraig McKenna. Tweet

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