Two-thousand-and-two was certainly an eventful year for Nicky McDonnell. He established himself as a permanent fixture in the senior county set-up and was an inspirational force for Naomh Mairtin as the Monasterboice men powered through to Division 1A and also reached the knock-out stages of the Louth senior football championship. Naomh Mairtin's Nicholas McDonnell has every reason to be feeling happy with himself from a personal point of view when he looks back on the 2002 season. He's now an intrinsic element in Paddy Carr's Louth panel and is also part of a relatively young Naomh Mairtin side that looks capable of exploding to life and emulating the achievements of neighbours Mattock Rangers. It was the Collon men who eliminated the Mairtins from the '02 race for the Joe Ward Cup - a result which left a bitter taste in Nicky's mouth and removed some of the gloss from an otherwise successful season, at club and county level. Furthermore, Nicky predicts big things for both Naomh Mairtin and Louth in 2003. And the industrious attacker should play a leading role in the exploits of both teams. Club manager Raymond Lambe was delighted with the progress McDonnell made in 2002: "It's great to see Nicky doing so well. He has put in a lot of work and is doing really well with Louth. It's the best thing that could have happened to him and we're all very proud." Raymond acted as a selector of the Mairtins senior team in 2002, alongside Martin Morgan. Nicky was one of three McDonnell brothers on the team, the others being former county player James and club captain Paul. The Mairtins came out of their group (drawing with Naomh Fionnbarra and Dundalk Gaels before beating St Josephs) in the championship but fell to Mattock in the quarter-final. They had more joy in the league, however, clinching promotion to Division 1A. Says Lambe: "Things didn't go well for us for the week or two leading up to the championship quarter-final when both James McDonnell and Fergus Winters picked up injuries and that's the last thing we wanted going into a big championship game against Collon. We had expected to come out of the group and were very disappointed with the way the Collon game went. "But we were very happy with how the league went and getting promoted to the top flight was a great achievement bearing in mind that we had been in a relegation play-off the previous year." There's no disputing that. And - with two of the Wee County's most exciting forwards in their ranks - there's no telling how far this Naomh Mairtin team might go. In JP Rooney and Nicky McDonnell, they have two true match-winners, men with the ability to unlock any defence. The season gone by was arguably McDonnell's best. He featured in back-to-back championship games against Monaghan and Meath and will be pushing very hard for a starting place with Louth in 2003. Louth returned to training in early October, with an emphasis on gym work. Nicky McDonnell's own immediate priority is to shake the ankle ligament problem that's been troubling him of late, then to stake his claim for a place on Louth's starting XV. He certainly moved in the right direction in 2002: "I was happy with the progress I made last year. Obviously I was hoping to maybe play more games for Louth but there's a lot of competition there for places and nobody can walk onto the team. I think I did okay when called upon, so hopefully next year I will make even more progress and hopefully I can become a regular." Nicky featured on the county panel previously under Paddy Clarke but his intercounty prospects were spoiled somewhat by injury as well as a summer spent abroad. He was desperately close to nailing down a starting place for the 2002 championship but picked up an injury at the start of May which ruled him out of the Longford game. That knocked his progress back but the Mairtins clubman was well back in contention by the time the Wee County crashed out of the championship on that luckless June night in Navan. Nicky has every reason to be optimistic about his 2003 prospects when, if he can stay injury free, the Monasterboice man will surely feature prominently in Paddy Carr's plans. How will Louth do next season? "I'm pretty confident. We could have a good season. Hopefully we can build on the more encouraging aspects of our performances last year. Meath were lucky to beat us in Navan and we were capable of putting together a good run after that. "We can do well this year but of course it's all on the day and it depends on the break of the ball. If we prepare and perform to our best ability, hopefully we'll get those all-important breaks. A Leinster final appearance would be great and we have the players here capable of achieving that. But it all depends really on what happens on the day..." As far as the season with Naomh Mairtin was concerned, Nicky admits that 2002 was a bit of a mixed bag: their league form was pretty decent, their championship form up to the knock-out stage wasn't at all bad, but their performance against Mattock was disappointing (even though their preparations were far from ideal): "I think the Mairtins have been doing quite well," insists the county man. "Our target at the start of the year was to get into Division 1A and we achieved that, so we're happy. Once you get up there, you're guaranteed at least another two years of senior football and it takes a way a bit of the pressure. Now we can concentrate more on the championship. "The way our championship campaign ended last year was a definite disappointment. We didn't do too well against Collon and ended up losing by nine points [2-13 to 0-10 at Drogheda on Sunday July 21st]. We were still with them at half time and were fancying our chances because a local derby can go either way, but they got the goals in the second half and pulled away. James [Nicky's brother - a mainstay of the team] had to go off at half time and that didn't help our cause. We have a lot of young players on the team and the leadership probably wasn't there in the second half. We fell apart and it was all very disappointing." Despite that setback (and perhaps even due to it), Nicky is convinced that there is still a senior championship in this present Naomh Mairtin side: "I hope there is anyway! And to be honest I can't see any reason why we shouldn't win it. A lot of the lads on the team are still only 18 or 19, so we should be a lot stronger in a couple of years. Football in Louth isn't great at the moment and there's not that much between any of the senior teams, so we could force our way into contention." The man who has represented his county at all levels concludes: "Our target for next year will definitely be to win the senior championship. We have been getting to the knock-out stages on a regular basis and have to take it a bit further. Watching Collon doing it last year has made us hungrier and we see no reason why their success shouldn't inspire us. Losing to them last July was hard to take, so we'll be going all out to set the record straight in 2003." Keep a close eye on Nicky McDonnell, Naomh Mairtin and Louth in the months to come. Tweet

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