Player of the Year in 2001, Monaghan Harps stalwart Gary McAleer feels that he didn't produce his best stuff in 2002. But then again neither did the county town side as a whole. Kevin Carney reports The school of thought which ordains that a strong football presence is essential in a county town for the entire county to prosper in GAA parlance can stir quite a debate. Gaels living in Cavan town, Enniskillen, Armagh city etc would likely hold a certain view on such a notion which would differ from that held by their country cousins. The argument is very much a subjective thing. Either way though, there are in Monaghan, those for instance, who would take much delight in seeing the county town club labour at junior level for longer than is healthy and good for football in the county. Not that the local Harps are looking for sympathy votes or anything. That's the last thing on the mind of club stalwart Gary McAleer. Instead, he genuinely believes that a lot of soul-searching and much more besides needs to be done to haul the Harps back up the pecking order. Monaghan Harps were relegated from senior ranks at the end of the 1998 season but rebounded in glorious fashion to annex the intermediate championship title the following year. It's that sort of character, pride and determination that Gary feels needs to be shown by all concerned with the green and whites if the club is to make its stay in junior ranks just a fleeting visit. Stiff competition between the various sports in and around Monaghan town is part of the local landscape. And Gary McAleer doesn't put a tooth in it when describing the impact the club's relegation to junior ranks had initially on the club. "Very, very disappointing. I didn't think the Harps would be playing junior football during my playing career. After all it's only a couple of years since we were taking on the likes of 'Blayney in the senior championship having had great success the previous year in winning the intermediate title. "There's a lot of ground to be made up but we have to start working hard now to try and get back to where we all feel we belong. It may take four or five years to get back among the top teams at senior level but if that's what it takes, so be it." Gary's honest assessment of the position Monaghan Harps now find themselves is, he says, a view held by the majority of Harps players. Gary, son of Harps' 1990 intermediate championship winning medallist John McAleer, maintains that at the start of the year, all belonging to the Harps would have been looking to achieve at least a top four spot in the league and a place in the semi-finals of the championship. To have achieved much less than that was a bitter pill to swallow, he contends. But Gary - a medal-laden underage player along with the likes of Peter Coyle and Darren Swift - says the players know themselves that much more commitment needs to be forthcoming if the club is to recover its erstwhile lustre. "Everyone realises that the team is going through a bit of a transition period right now but we can't afford to use that as an excuse. We're having to rebuild the team 'cause we've missed the likes of Joe Coyle, John McCoy and Shea McAleer but we should still have been good enough to have held our own at intermediate level. "We need to start from scratch now and even though the team is very young, we can't keep saying every year that we've a young team, especially when things don't go to plan," the hard-working attacker insists. Ironically, things seemed to be going exactly to plan when the Harps kicked off their 2002 intermediate championship campaign with a gritty 0-12 to 1-8 win over Emyvale in the opening round at Truagh last June. "We knew Emyvale were going to prove to be tough to beat. They would have been most people's favourites to win that game because in head-to-head matches with us in the championship over the last few years, they would have came out on top more often than not. "And when we conceded a goal very early on in the game and then had a man sent off, it didn't look too good for us. We went in at the break five points having struggled badly to win any decent possession. "But then our manager Mickey Morgan told us that we had to look at the second half as if it was a new game and we were starting five points behind. That meant we had to work very hard to get back on terms and we did that and put in more direct ball to the forwards and that paid off too because we played a lot better in the second half. It was a win at the end of the day and the kind of start to the championship we were hoping for." But Monaghan Harps' winning streak was ended next time out in the second round by Doohamlet in Clontibret on the back of a 1-8 to 0-13 defeat. Doohamlet's county star Shane McManus did much of the damage that day, weighing in with an eight point tally. However, his counterpart at the other end, McAleer, suggests that Monaghan's misery had more to do with the Harps' own failings. "We just weren't hungry or keen enough in Clontibret. We seemed to wait for things to happen instead of making them happen. We were a point ahead at half-time and were well positioned to go on and win the game but it was Doohamlet who seemed to want the win more in the second half and they got what they wanted in the end. They're a young team with a lot of good players and they should do very well in the coming years . . .but that's no consolation to us, of course. "We were the fancied team going into that game but knew that we were going to have to roll up our sleeves but obviously we didn't work hard enough and they took the points because of that," the 25-year old opines. If the Doohamlet result was a injurious, the game(s) that followed the following month against Clones had the effect of causing a fatal blow to the Harps. The teams met in Truagh and a dramatic game finished all-square with the Harps bagging 1-8 to the Clones tally of 0-11. If Shane McManus was Monaghan's nemesis in the Doohamlet game, another countyman Declan McKernan was to play a huge role in ushering the Harps out of the championship. It was McKernan's converted free deep into injury time which secured a last gasp draw for Clones after the Harps took the lead three minutes into stoppage time thanks to good work by Ashley White who helped put Stephen Creighan through for a shock goal. Little did the teams and their supporters realise that the drama would be repeated the following week at Scotstown. Monaghan Harps 2-13, Clones 1-20 (aet); the scoreline still sends shivers down Gary McAleer' spine. The aforementioned McKernan's 1-11 tally again driving a stake through the Harps bid for a semi-final berth. The Harps trailed by 1-4 to 0-8 at the interval, then 2-10 to 1-16 at half-time in extra time after the sides had deadlocked at 2-9 to 1-12 at the end of ordinary time. "I think we missed the boat the first day when we got our goal in injury time and should have held on. And then we were ahead in the replay with just seconds to go when they converted a penalty. It was heart-breaking stuff." Reflecting on the year, Gary says he felt he could have done more to help the team personally but that what is gone, is gone, and it is now "up to each of us to stand up and be counted." So how does he think things will go for the team in 2003? "It will be tough going. The club hasn't played at junior level since 1975 and it may be that it could be a couple of years before we get back to intermediate. Playing in junior ranks won't do anything to help bring on the younger members of the team so we'll be hoping to bounce back after just the one year but with the likes of Cremartin and Aughnamullen in the way, it won't be easy. "Those sort of teams are as good as most of the teams currently playing intermediate football. It will be a big battle to emerge from junior at the end of the year and the overall inexperience of the team won't help. It might take at least a couple of years for the present Harps team to realise its potential, he surmises. "Luck wasn't on our side in 2002. The ball didn't bounce kindly for us at times. But, above all, we didn't do ourselves justice because we didn't put enough into it - the commitment needed was lacking. Hopefully we can change that around next year." Tweet

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