Swanlinbar have been experiencing a rollercoaster existence over the course of recent seasons. In 2007 it was no different. At the outset of last year most gaels in county Cavan probably anticipated that Swanlinbar had it in them to chase league and championship honours in '07. Stocked with some of the best young players at Division Three League and IFC levels, Swad could be relied upon to at least ruffle a lot of feathers, pundits concurred. Unfortunately, the past season proved a mixed bag for the north-westerners with grave disappointment in the league being tempered somewhat by consolidation in the championship. Unexpectedly, matters surrrounding Swad's premier side had a dollop of negativity about it in 2007, especially after the euphoria which emerged from their '06 JFC triumph. Every club experiences peaks and troughs but few gaels in Cavan would have expected the fortunes of the blue and white brigade to have dipped in the way they did last year. Experienced attacker Padraig Leydon doesn't begin to mask the sense of disappointment in his part of west Cavan with the way things panned out over the course of '07. "We had an up-and-down year," he comments. We played our best football in the championship, as usual, but we didn't cover ourselves in glory in the league and paid the price." In football parlance, relegation is shorthand for 'paying the price'. Sadly that was the fate which befell Swanlinbar in division two of the All County Football League last year. It is often said that this set of players or that squad are too good to go down but Swad in 2007 debunked that notion once again and Padraig himself offers no excuses. "We weren't consistent enough during the year and probably got no more than we deserved in the league although there were a number of matches we drew that we should have won. "Things went very well for us in 2006 and we had hoped to build on the championship win but when we got a draw against Ramor at home early on, we felt fairly good about the year. "It didn't work out for us though because we didn't continue where we had left off in 2006. It's hard to know what happened but maybe we did lose a bit of our hunger after 2006." The club's JFC triumph was a lung-busting campaign and perhaps it took its toll; especially given the fact that Swad also competed for the Ulster junior club crown also. In that competition, the Cavan champions came up against Armagh representatives Port Mor in the preliminary round of the competition but lost by a handful of points in the end. But one wonders what were Swad's goals in 2007 and did the squad feel confident about consolidating their capture of some solid silverware the previous year? "I think everyone had it in their head that we'd try and get a decent run going in division three and then hopefully go on to have a good run in the championship," Padraig explains. "The league never really went right for us because we found it very hard to put together good games, back-to-back, and as the year went on we knew we were in trouble. "We were poor in the league last year but it wasn't a whole lot different other years either because we had to work hard to avoid relegation before so it wasn't totally new for us. "I think for a lot of the league (season) we were too complacent, waiting for things to happen during games instead of making them happen for ourselves." To his credit, Padraig isn't prepared to blame injuries or any other issues for Swad's league travails but he does re-iterate that the club's championship form was much better. In fairness to the Swad players, it couldn't have helped that there was a change of management just a few games into the 2007 season with outgoing boss Dermot Smith departing. In came Aogan Murphy and Sean Doherty (Kinawley) and fitness levels etc began to improve, according to Padraig. But . . . "I think by the time the two lads came in, we had lost a lot of ground in the league and it took a couple of months for them to put their mark on the team. "Luckily, by the time the championship came around, we were in fairly good shape and we thought we'd have been able to give it a right good rattle." Sadly for Leydon and Co. a narrow defeat to Ballyhaise in Drumlane in the championship wasn't what the doctor had ordered as a cure for the team's troubles in the secondary league competition. Thereafter, Swanlinbar went on to take on Drung, again at the Drumlane venue, and after a titanic battle which went to extra-time, the west Cavan lads triumphed with great gusto. Victory over Drung landed Swad with a match against Bailieboro to see who would make it through to the quarter-finals of the intermediate championship. "We didn't play that badly but they were the better team overall on the day and we lost by a few points which was disappointing but the Drung game was our big one," Padraig explains. "Beating Drung was our most important game of the year because it meant we would be staying up in intermediate ranks for 2008 which was a good boost to the club. "We showed a lot of character too against Ballyhaise because they were a good team and a lot of people thought they were good enough to go the whole way in the championship." Reflecting on what might have been, it seems most, if not all, of Padraig's sighs are centered on Swad's inability to nick vital points in the league when they were there for the taking. He thinks specifically of games against the likes of Knockbride and Lavey when one point defeats could so easily have been one point victories. Teasing out the mindset of the team at those junctures, Padraig concedes that something of the 'taking your feet off the pedals' mentality may have been present for part of '07. "We all enjoyed winning the junior championship in 2006 but instead of pushing on and building on that, I think we relaxed and didn't put as much effort in as we should have last year. "It's a big step up from the junior to the intermediate championship and we just tripped ourselves up. The football was faster and you can find yourself playing division one teams. "It was important that we got out of junior though and stayed in intermediate because we all remember how we went down in 2005, losing to Cootehill and then Laragh." Padraig (29) admits that Swad have been living a somewhat yo-yo existence and he accepts that consistency ought to be the name of the game for the team as a whole this year. He reckons the same formula of a decent early run in the league ahead of the blue riband championship fare should be the aim with the latter competition definitely being the priority. A hard-working and clever half-forward, Padraig says that anything less than a semi-final finish in the IFC this year would be disappointing for all concerned with Swad. "Playing in division three of the league will be a whole new experience for meand all the other lads I think, apart from Kevin Brennan," Padraig points out. "It'll be new territory for the team but with so many derby matches lined up (Corlough, Kildallan, Shannon Gaels, Templeport) it's going to be very difficult to get out of the division. "In derby matches anything can happen and a lot of times it comes down to which team wants to win the most so hopefully we'll all be up for the matches when they come around." And what of the IFC, and the draw which sees Swad paired with Kill Shamrocks in the opening round? "They beat us in the intermediate championship about four years ago in a match in Butlersbridge so they'll probably fancy their chances of doing the same again. "From our point of view, we think we could have got a worse draw but maybe they'd say the same so who knows, we'll see how it goes." For 2008, Swad will be guided by team-trainer Aogan Murphy plus selectors Eamon Reilly, Declan McGovern and Vincent Reilly and Padraig is looking forward to a good year. The former county under 16 and county minor ace is, first and foremost, hoping to keep fit and enjoy his football which is understandable given his history of injuries. While a county minor playing against Fermanagh in the Ulster MFC at Kingspan/Breffni Park, Padraig was unlucky enough to tear his cruciate ligament in his knee. From that June day to the following March, the Bus Eireann driver was on the sidelines, recuperating and wondering would he be able to kick a ball in anger again. Kinda puts things in perspective. Tweet

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