Relegation was the operative word in Cornafean at the tail end of 2004. But the Reds' Chairman PJ McGlade believes the coming season offers much hope of redemption. Words: Kevin Carney. PJ McGlade is a journalist's delight. Honest, forthright and a man given to shooting from the hip. Telling it how it is is PJ's style as he holds court as Chairman of Cornafean GAA. The jocular gael is just after getting a vote of confidence by being re-elected as Reds' Chairman for 2005 and quips that the increase in salary just about convinced him to stay on at least another year! But despite being a part of the club's inner circle for many, many years, PJ has retained the ability to take a step back and assess the state of play at the club without the use of the proverbial rose-tinted glasses. Thus, PJ has little difficulty in spelling it out in clear, stark language just how disappointing a season the club's premier team experienced in 2004. "Last year was one we'll want to forget. Being relegated in the championship was bad enough but making the drop in the league was even worse," he contends. The feeling in the McGlade household and in the broader Cornafean family as a whole is that playing intermediate championship football in 2005 from a division three base hadn't the look of a winning formula. Failure to retain the club's place in division two of the All County Football League was, it appears, the hardest pill to swallow of all for the Longford-border crew. That pill was made even less palatable by dint of the fact that the Reds can agonisingly close to achieving their goal of staying in the second division for at least another year. "Everyone put in a big effort into getting the results needed from the club's last three games in the league. "We beat Lacken but then lost out away to Killinkere when we did everything but score. "We were five points up but we let them in for two goals and that's what killed us." Of course, it could be argued that PJ's view of things are coloured by his passion for Cornafean but there's no doubting his sincerity when he says that the Reds deserved to retain their position in division two. "We lost a good few games, like against Lacken and Ballinagh, by just a point or two and if we had those decisions went for us instead of against us, we'd have stayed up. But our biggest problem all year was that we weren't able to kill teams off when we were on top." Cornafean's final game in the 2004 division two league campaign saw them host Swanlinbar. "The lads were really geared up for the Swad match, maybe a bit too much wound up. "Again we were poor in the last third of the field. "We conceded a late penalty but then got back into it to go ahead by a point only to let them get through for the last couple of points in the game," PJ recalls. Still where there's a will, there's a way. And the highly-experienced Cornafean administrator is certain that there is sufficient determination and enough ambition within the club's ranks to ensure a speedy return to intermediate league/championship football. But what about the material at the club's disposal? "We've a very young team right now but the youngsters coming through are of good quality. "We won the division two minor league and championship double last year along with Killeshandra with about seven or eight of our players on the team. "We rate those fellas very highly and in another year or two most of them should be able to contribute to the junior team. "The sad thing is that those fellas will miss out on playing division two football in the coming year. "It's important that fellas coming out of minor level play in as high a grade of adult football as possible and playing at intermediate level would have brought them on a lot. But, at the end of the day, we have only ourselves to blame because we didn't put away teams when we had the chance. "At the start of the year, we hoped to keep our place in both the league and the championship and, as far as the league is concerned, another six points would have put us in the running for a place in the top four." P.J who is married to Sadie - daughter of former Cavan 1933 and '45 star Willie Young - says that there is "a good balance" about the current Cornafean squad but that "we'll be looking to get a little bit more from a few of the lads next year." Fulsome in his praise of the effort put into the preparation of the team in 2004 by the outgoing team-management crew of Liam Young, Philip Wilson, Paraic Gormley and Seamus Gannon, the veteran Cornafean clubman says that the Reds showed much too much inconsistency in their play overall to achieve a satisfactory innings in 2004. He cites the case of how the team impressed greatly in disposing of the challenge of Swanlinbar (1-11 to 1-10) in the opening round of the intermediate championship in Belturbet but only managed a single draw (Drung) thereafter. A relegation play-off with Laragh United at the Ballinagh venue compounded the Reds' championship difficulties. Later the Reds were left to fight it out in the last chance saloon at the Kilnaleck venue along with Killinkere. Again defeat was the order of the day. And yet in recalling the past few months, PJ is mindful of how Cornafean heads didn't drop among the Cornafean faithful in the days that followed the club's championship exit. PJ maintains they couldn't afford to drop because the arguably more important business of notching the requisite number of points in their final few games in the league was paramount. The players even stepped up the training as they found their backs well and truly up against the wall. It wasn't enough though. As someone who remembers only too well when, back in the seventies, the club almost went out of existence only for Seamus Doyle and the Scor contingent to help cement the club's survival, PJ is far from despondent at how things currently stand at the club. In fact he truly believes that the Reds can take inspiration from the successes of clubs like Lavey and Butlersbridge who rebounded from the disappointment of relegation to reap success at junior level in double quick time. And with the return to the fold of former maestro Phil Cullen, there certainly seems to be room for optimism. "We're hoping that Phil can recapture some of the magic of 2000 when we won the junior championship. "He's popular with the players and he feels himself that there's plenty of material to work with. "If we're lucky with injuries, I think we can get back into the intermediate ranks straight away." Previously vice-Chairman and Secretary of Cornafean, PJ - father of 2004 minor medallist Thomas and former underage club players Brian and Joseph - believes the fact that some 33 players turned up for their St. Stephen's Day charity match shows that Phil Cullen will have no problem in finding sufficient numbers from which to choose his best XV in 2005. Will he be able though to assemble a group capable of turning the club's fortunes around? "I think so. The lads are all keen, the support is there for them - we've a good gym and a good committee - and there's not a lot in it at junior level. "We should be as good as any of them around in 2005." Tweet

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