Wolfe Tones GFC made significant progress in 2008 by capturing both the Louth junior 2B football championship and the county minor Division Four crown. Steadily, they are regaining their feet and the signs are encouraging that the Tones will soon be ready to compete at full JFC level once more. A few years can make a big difference in sport. Three years ago, Drogheda club Wolfe Tones found themselves perilously close to extinction and drastic action was required to save them. The powers that be in the club decided to focus firstly on juvenile development and then to withdraw from the JFC and move down to junior 2A. This approach, which had the full backing of the County Board, paid dividends in 2008 when they claimed the junior 2B and minor Division Four championships. The 2B breakthrough represents the club's first adult championship success in 61 years. Sometimes you have to take a few steps back before you can take one forward It may not carry the lustre or appeal of winning a Joe Ward Cup, but for a club that has returned from the brink, it's a landmark success and one that could propel them towards bigger and better things. That's the plan, anyway. Selector Paddy Fanning is confident that they have vindicated the decision to move down a couple of rungs: "Hopefully, we have turned the corner. It has taken three years of work to get to where we are at, and now we have to look at the future. We always thought that any kind of success would boost us, and hopefully that will now be the case." The 2008 Louth junior 2B championship decider took place at Stabannon on Saturday September 20 and Wolfe Tones proved far too strong for the St Fechins second string as they powered to a comprehensive 0-11 to 0-5 victory. The winners registered the first six points of the match and led by 0-6 to 0-1 at the short whistle. Eighteen-year-old Conor Brannigan finished the game with a whopping 0-8 to his credit. He grabbed half his team's first-half scores, with the remainder coming from Mark McKenna, Gordon Owens and Danny Coyle. The young half forward added all five of the Tones' scores after the break and the Fechins never raised a flag from play until the game was in its final quarter. In the end, it was a comfortable and thoroughly deserved victory for a vibrant young side, who will proudly hold onto the Terry Maher Cup for twelve months. Alongside his selectors David Tully and Brendan O'Connell, Patrick Fanning has been instrumental in the positive reversal of fortunes. He is quick to share the credit with the club's forward-thinking committee and also pays tribute to the patience and understanding of the top brass in the Wee County. "I know it probably suits the County Board to allow us not to play in the junior championship, as they have twelve teams without us, which enables them to play two groups of six, but in fairness they have let us get on with it. We tried 2A last year and were unlucky in the replay against the Blues, so we thought this year we'd take our chances and go for 2B and it has worked out brilliantly. "I'm delighted with the win and everybody in the club is thrilled. Our youth structure is very strong and we won the Division Four MFC final in Darver a few weeks before the junior 2B. Three or four of the lads feature on both sides, so that shows how much youth we have. "Of the team that started the junior 2B final, they are all 25 or under and I'd really like to think they can build on that. If they can continue to develop and put on a bit of muscle, there's no reason why Wolfe Tones can't compete at junior 1 level in a couple of years." Wolfe Tones managed to bring back some of the players from their successful U14 and U16 teams of the late 1990s and are hopeful of encouraging some more faces back into the frame. "We had a good U16 team this year and a good minor team, so we have plenty of players coming through. We're going well at juvenile level and that makes us hopeful. A couple of the players who dropped out at the start of this year were disappointed that they didn't keep it up and they have promised to come back and give the commitment again next year. We look forward to that. We're also hoping to bring in one or two other lads who drifted away in the past and we might be able to transfer in some new players in as well. "Hopefully this championship win can provide us with a bit of momentum. We had 19 lads there for the junior 2B final, which was played on a Saturday morning and clashed with soccer. So that's encouraging. We're always competing with soccer in the club and it's good when you can get 19 fellas out on a Saturday morning. "The performances in Division Three of the league in 2008 were also a marked improvement on the previous year. We didn't suffer too many heavy defeats and we managed to get a couple of wins [over St Kevins and Annaghminnon] on the board early in the year, so we feel we are improving all the time." All in all, it has been a dramatic transformation for the Tones. At one stage, it genuinely looked as though the Drogheda club might fold, but they are now winning silverware and generating a bit of hype for the first time in ages. Though everybody acknowledges that there is still an awful lot of work to do before the club will be fully re-established, they are clearly moving in the right direction and Paddy Fanning admits he's relieved with how things have worked out thus far: "When we started with this crop three years ago, we didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into. But this group of young lads had come through with us from U12 level and we didn't want to give up on them. We thought it would be a real shame to let them drift away, so we've put a lot of effort into holding things together. "Alan O'Connor, who's from Dublin, has been a big help at training, introducing some excellent techniques and he's been a real asset to the club. We're definitely in a much stronger situation now than we were in 2005. We have some good talent in the club and we've won a couple of trophies, so we're going to keep plugging away and strive to make further improvement next year." Wolfe Tones, 2008 Louth junior 2B football champions: J Owens; P Fanning, R Daly, P McKernon; I McKenna, I Kelly, G Delaney; K Bull, G Fanning; D Coyle (0-1), M McKenna (0-1), C Brannigan (0-8); D Weldon, J Kelly, G Owens. Subs: R Stewart, K Farrell, D Brannigan, G Martin. Tweet

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