Annaghminnon Rovers' 2002 season gradually descended into a relegation dogfight before they lucklessly surrendered their Division 2B status right at the death. Team captain Niall Matthews reflects on an eventful term for the club and looks forward to a quick return to the middle grade. The disappointment that shrouded the Annaghminnon Rovers clubhouse at the end of 2002 should not be mistaken for doom and gloom. These lads have no reason to be feeling despondent. Okay, relegation back to junior ranks may have been their lot - but let us not forget the tremendous strides the spirited Rovers have made in recent times. A few years ago, the discerning Louth GAA public rated them complete no-hopers. Since then, they've won a junior championship (2000) and have two years of intermediate football under their belts. Not bad going for a team accustomed to being written off and pigeonholed as 'also-rans'! Full back Niall Matthews (whose father Gerald played on Rovers' previous JFC-winning side back in 1964) captained the team in 2002. He notes: "Of course it's a blow to go back down to junior again, but we have still come a long way over the past three years. The experience of playing intermediate football should be a big help to us. While there's not an awful lot between junior and intermediate football in Louth, you still play a better brand of football in intermediate. "We're back to square one now but we're a better team than we were last time we played junior football. The lads are determined to make a go of it. This team is still very young. Apart from maybe two players, most of us are in our mid-twenties or even younger, so there's a lot of football left in us and the mood in the camp is positive." Niall is adamant that Rovers are still a good enough team to play intermediate football, pointing out that there's not a huge gap between Division 2B and Division 3. He feels that they weren't necessarily out of their depth in intermediate football - an argument backed up by the fact that, ultimately, only a Houdini act from O'Raghallaighs deprived them of a third successive year in the middle tier. "O'Raghallaighs looked doomed for a long time after getting off to a bad start. But the division is very competitive, with two of the seven teams going up and two going down, so only three actually stay where they are. No-one can relax. Every team has to fight hard in every game and it takes a big effort every time you go out." In Group A of the 2002 intermediate championship, Annaghminnon lost narrowly to O'Raghallaighs before also succumbing to Oliver Plunketts, St Kevins and St Fechins. The team captain notes: "We only lost our first championship game by two points. We were well beaten by the Plunketts on a wet night midweek when we had a lot of injuries. "It was very hard to get our season back on track after that defeat but I certainly wouldn't agree that we were playing at a level above ourselves. We're well fit for intermediate football and we very nearly stayed up [Annaghminnon finished bottom of the division, but only three points behind fifth-placed O'Raghallaighs]. "Nobody managed to beat us twice in the league in 2001, which shows that we could hold our own. But you need all your players available." Despite this, Niall is under no illusions as to the enormity of the task that faces the club next year. He realises that they will have nothing easy as they attempt to bounce back up from a decidedly competitive junior section: "Fair play to Na Piarsaigh, they did it this year, but it's a tall order. There are some good junior teams and you could get trapped there easily enough. "I remember we played the Brides junior three or four years ago and they were in the senior final this year, so junior football can't be as bad as some people say. A lot of teams that come up from junior level do well for themselves at higher levels. We know we have another very difficult year ahead of us. "But we're ready for the challenges ahead. There's still another junior championship in this team - at the very least!" Relegation was far from Annaghminnon's collective minds when they drew up their objectives at the start of the year. "Our expectations were pretty high," Niall admits. "Our ambition would've been to try and move up to Division 2A . . . but as the season progressed it became clear that we weren't going to go that way! "We had been in a relegation battle in 2001 and it went down to the last couple of games. We got a win and a draw from those and finished mid-table. We were pleased with that. We knew the first year was going to be very tough and were delighted to have that behind us. Our confidence was higher and we expected to maybe build on that," explains the man who has also worn the colours of Patrician High School (in Carrickmacross), UCD (Freshers) and the St Joes/St Mochtas' U21 amalgam (in '97). The season commenced satisfactorily for the Red and Whites, but one injury too many eventually took its toll. "It started fairly well and we had good training back in February," Niall reflects. "We had decent numbers and recorded some encouraging league wins in a couple of local derbies. We were feeling really positive and things looked a lot better than they had at the same time the previous year. Then we had some injuries to key players and that really upset our momentum. "We're working off a small panel at the best of times and it sets us back big time when there are players missing. We had a few bad results, numbers dropped and we struggled in the middle of the season. "The timing of the championship didn't really suit us. There was a break of about five or six weeks from the league and we lost our four championship matches. That really knocked the stuffing out of us." It was more a case of the tide turning against the players than anyone becoming disillusioned or heads dropping. At no point in the year did any of the players contemplate throwing in the towel. As Niall points out: "They are a very loyal bunch of lads and they gave it everything. They kept travelling to the games, some from Dublin and some from the west. There was never any question mark over the commitment of the players." But alas, when a club is operating on limited resources, danger lurks at every crossroads! "At best, we might have 20-23 players but that dwindled down to 18 or 19 for much of the year. Tony Martin is our top scoring forward and he was one of the stars of the 2000 junior championship win, but he hurt his hand and missed two or three months. Joey Clarke and Aidan Kerr are two others who would make any team and we also had to do without them for prolonged periods." Against such a backdrop, relegation was almost inevitable. However, it is to their eternal credit that the Rovers almost avoided the drop. All in all, the mood in and around Corcreaghy is upbeat: "When I started on the team ten years ago, we were written off every year," Niall intimates. "We have turned the thing around now, winning a junior championship and playing intermediate football for two years. The players here are young enough and have the talent to win another junior title. "We have a taste for intermediate football now and we have shown that we can compete at that level. 90% of the current team will be here for the next seven or eight years, so we can build on past achievements. "Annaghminnon Rovers is a small club in the rural part of a small parish, but players have proven themselves to be extremely loyal to the club. They have stuck with it through the years and I have no doubt they'll continue to do so. The lads who pull on the Annaghminnon jersey have never been found wanting when it comes to attitude and that gives us an edge on a lot of other clubs. "To be honest, I think we have an excellent chance of bouncing back." Indeed - as Annaghminnon have proven in the past - a little bit of spirit goes a long way... Tweet

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