After an electrifying start to their Group A campaign, St Josephs saw their 2003 SFC challenge ruthlessly cut down by back-to-back defeats at the hands of neighbours and bona-fide bogey team Stabannon. Team veteran John Fox was disappointed not just by the defeats but also by the limitations they exposed. The nature of St Josephs' 2003 Louth senior football championship exit was decidedly underwhelming. The Joes blazed out of the traps with two early victories and seemed to have one foot in the knock-out stages of the race for Joe. All was going according to plan ... until they crossed swords with Stabannon Parnells, that is. Two gruelling clashes later, the Dromiskin club's '03 aspirations were up in smoke - enough smoke to attract a whole colony of friendly Native Americans. Except there was no friendly fire in sight... For everyone associated with the Cluskey Park outfit, it was a sad, disappointing and unexpected end to a championship season that had promised so much more. It had been billed as a do-or-die campaign for the club, time for one last serious tilt at senior glory before the core of the team transcends the Rubicon and slips irretrievably over the hill. Alas, it simply wasn't to be. John Fox has been on the Joes first team for two decades now. The seasoned club stalwart echoes the sentiments of everyone involved with 2003's fruitless push for Joe Ward glory when he admits: "It was gutting for all of us. We were very, very disappointed. To get so close to the knock-out stages after putting so much work in and then see it slip away before your eyes is demoralising." John is not one to offer excuses, however. He accepts that the Joes have only themselves to blame, that ultimately there was something lacking in the team and they just weren't good enough: "We had opportunities to win both games against Stabannon but just didn't take them. We missed too many chances, which is a failing we have to recognise. We have to look inwards rather than outwards when we're looking for reasons and explanations. It was in our own hands but we blew it." The Joes set the pace in Group A early on, starting their campaign with superb wins over 2002 finalists St Brides and senior newcomers Naomh Malachi. The Brides provided the opposition for the group opener at Dunleer on June 15th and - after early points from John Fox, Aidan Maguire, Alan O'Connor and Jason McCourt put them on the road to victory - the Dromiskin/Darver combo romped to an encouraging 1-14 to 1-9 success. Two early points on the board! Four weeks later, at Haggardstown on July 11th, Naomh Malachi were comprehensively outscored, 4-11 to 1-8. Eight different Joes players got their name on the scoresheet that day and they were now favourites to top the group. All that was needed was a point from the final group outing against Stabannon and a place in the last eight would be assured. However, there were two stings in this particular tail, and both came courtesy of the unfashionable Stabannon men. The final group game at Castlebellingham on July 18th ended in controversy when Stabannon's Colin Quinn was awarded a late equalising point even though most observers felt his shot had drifted harmlessly wide in the gloom and murkiness of The Grove. Worse yet was to come when the same player landed an injury time winner and the Joes were now consigned to a three-way play-off, having been hit with the suckerpunch to end all suckerpunches. The draw for the play-offs only offered the Joes one chance: St Brides beat Stabannon comfortably in the first play-off to top the group and advanced to a quarter-final meeting with Newtown Blues. Stabannon then had a second bite at the cherry when they played St Josephs in the second play-off to determine who would finish as group runners-up and meet St Patricks in the knock-outs. At Castlebellingham on the evening of Thursday July 31st, Stabannon again beat the Joes, this time by 1-12 to 0-12. What had happened was unthinkable - from pole position, the Joes had crashed out of contention with a resounding thud. The debris was strewn all over mid-Louth. It was a desperately disappointing end to the season. When asked whether the Joe Ward had ranked amongst St Josephs' list of priorities at the start of the year, John Fox answers in the affirmative: "Absolutely. We were going for it. We put the work in and prepared well ... that gave us the opportunity to go out and play football. We did a lot of hard work pre-season and everything was done to maximise our chances." While they weren't by any means overly confident, the Joes knew they were in with a chance of scooping the top prize, particularly with standards in the Wee County having levelled off in recent years. "We knew the race was wide open," John confirms. "There are no strong or dominant teams in Louth like Stabannon and Clan Na Gael were in the 'nineties. "There are a number of teams capable of winning the senior championship and we saw ourselves as one of those. We knew that if things went well for us we were in with a great shout." The Dromiskin/Darver raid could hardly have started better - the previous year's beaten finalists St Brides were given a bit of a footballing lesson in the first round. "We started well," John agrees, "particularly against the Brides where we played some lovely football and then against Naomh Malachi. Those were two good results and we were sitting pretty at that stage. However, with four teams in each group there's always the chance of a three-way play-off and that's how it turned out..." The Joes could have been forgiven for thinking they were home and hosed. Their final group outing was against a Stabannon team perceived by most observers to be in rapid decline, and Pat Mulligan's side appeared to have booked a quarter-final place when leading with time almost up at The Grove. Then, without warning, the game ended under a cloud of controversy. John Fox understands the futility of moaning. Instead, he takes defeat square on the chin: "It was still in our own hands and we had an excellent opportunity to finish top of the group. It was a very dark evening and unfortunately the referee made a mistake when awarding them a crucial point that just about everybody else thought was wide but that's the way these things happen and we can't dwell on that one incident. Before that, we had ample opportunities to win the game but didn't take them, so if we're going to point fingers we can only point them at ourselves." As things transpired, the play-offs presented St Josephs with an ideal opportunity to set the record straight. But once again they failed to take advantage: "It was disappointing losing to Stabannon the first day, but we were still in contention. As it turned out, we got the opportunity to play them again and that was exactly the game we wanted. It was a glorious opportunity to put things right, but it just didn't happen for us on the day. We had two weeks to prepare for the game and they only had six days, but we still couldn't beat them." With all due respect to Stabannon, it was a shock result second time around. The Joes were tipped to win at the second attempt ... and fully expected to do so: "We were confident. Stabannon will admit themselves that they have been stronger in the past. They had a lot of young inexperienced players and were still relying heavily on Ken Reilly and Pat Butterly, so we felt we would be good enough. But that hoodoo they have over us resurfaced." It was a devastating setback for a team capable of going much further, as John relates: "We felt that if we could get out of the group stages, with a number of games under our belts and the team starting to take shape, then we could have frightened anyone, especially with players of the calibre of "Skid" Reilly and Ollie McDonnell at our disposal. With the championship wide open, we were really looking forward to the do-or-die games, so it was a huge blow not to actually get that far. "What made things even worse was the fact that we had worked so hard from early in the year, and that applies to both the management [Pat Mulligan had been enticed back into the hotseat for the first time since leading the Joes to the 1994 county final] and players. Pat took the job on his own and he lifted us to a new level. I can't remember a Joes team ever working so hard..." It's as difficult to believe that the Joes have yet to add to their sole SFC success of 1996 as it is to fathom why. John, who missed the '96 final with a broken collarbone, notes: "We won it with a very young and exciting team and we felt we'd go on to win a few more. But further success didn't materialise for one reason or another. "In 2003, we felt that with the number of teams in contention maybe we could sneak another championship with a bit of luck. One of our big concerns now is that the team isn't getting any younger, with a lot of players in their mid-thirties, so we have to start looking at bringing some new talent through. "Looking back on the 2003 season, there's a sense of deja-vu and severe disappointment in the camp. The effort invested by everyone associated with the team was unbelievable and to then lose two games we should have won is difficult to come to terms with. We prepared meticulously and had opportunities in both games - the bottom line is we just weren't good enough." Tweet

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