Na Piarsaigh were desperately unlucky not to gain promotion to senior football for the first time ever in 2005. The Rock Road men didn't come quite so close in '06 but they at least managed to preserve their intermediate status amid the County Board restructure and team stalwart Robert Nash believes the Black & Amber can mount another serious challenge to coincide with their 25th anniversary celebrations. Hopes were high on the Rock Road going into 2006. Na Piarsaigh had enjoyed their best year ever in '05 and could consider themselves desperately unfortunate not to have clinched promotion to Wee County football's top table. Founded in 1982, the club has never played senior football before; with a little bit of luck they would have been doing so in the year gone by. As it was, they had to content themselves with another season in the middle grade. Defeat to Naomh Malachi in a promotion play-off cost Dundalk's youngest club dearly in the dying embers of '05 and now was the time to put that disappointment behind them and move on. Alas, in the 2006 knockout, they never quite found their true form and the business end of the competition proved beyond them this time around. An opening-round 1-9 to 0-7 victory over Glen Emmets was as good as it got for the Holy Family parish men in Group B. Successive defeats to Sean McDermotts (0-11 to 0-9), O'Raghallaighs (1-7 to 0-8) and Hunterstown Rovers (4-7 to 0-10) confirmed that Na Piarsaigh would not realise their dream of senior football for another twelve months at least. O'Raghallaighs and Hunterstown emerged from the section; neither reached the final. Meanwhile, in Division 2A of the all-county league, it was imperative that Na Piarsaigh avoided a Bottom Two finish. Only the top five in this section would retain their intermediate status for '07 - when club football will undergo a radical transformation - so any slip-up could have proven costly. True to form, Na Piarsaigh held on comfortably. Robert Nash was his usual dependable self in the black and amber jersey in 2006 - his tenth year as a first-team player with his club. Was he relieved that the Pearses managed to retain their intermediate status? "To be honest, when we look back on the year, we'd have to say we were disappointed rather than relieved. We went so close to attaining senior status the previous year that we were hoping to push for senior again. As there was no way up via the league, it was a question of concentrating on the intermediate championship. Unfortunately, we didn't get going in the championship at all and we only really found our form after we had been eliminated." Perhaps the players hadn't fully got over the shock of seeing senior football slip agonisingly through their fingers at the end of 2005. Robert reflects ruefully: "We had two games left in the league and it was in our own hands. If we'd won both matches we would have gone senior for the first time in the club's history, but we lost the second-last game to Naomh Malachi and that brought both them and Sean O'Mahonys back into it…" All three clubs ended up in a three-way play-off. Na Piarsaigh were drawn to face the Malachis again, with the winners going on to play the O'Mahonys in the promotion 'final'. Na Piarsaigh fell to the Courrtbane men again and O'Mahonys clinched the prize at the end of an epic three-team battle that lasted all season. Little wonder Na Piarsaigh were feeling a bit deflated as the new year loomed! "We're still very hopeful," Robert confirms. "We can put 2006 behind us and at least we're still intermediate. We haven't really been a championship team for three or four years but we thought this might be the year that would see us change that. We have a lot of good young players and it wasn't exactly the most difficult group ever, but we just failed to ignite." The team's subsequent league form was way more impressive. Was it a case of hitting form at the wrong time? "Definitely. After the championship, our manager [Jim Loughran from Carrickcruppin] decided that was it and we had to appoint a new management team. Eugene Burns, Brendan O'Meara and Michael Begley - who are three good clubmen - took charge of team affairs for the rest of the season and they did a good job. It was in complete contrast to the previous year because this time we didn't have a lot to play for once we were knocked out of the championship…" The inspirational midfielder/attacker is confident that the future is bright for the Wee County's second-youngest club (they were the 'babies' of the family until the new club in Omeath was formed this year): "We made the county minor final last year and reached a semi-final this year. We've also won an U21 championship, so there's clearly a lot of good talent coming through. We'll be celebrating our 25th anniversary next year and we're really happy with the progress we've made in that time. Five or six years ago, the club was content to be battling between junior and intermediate but we've raised our targets. With the players we have at our disposal, we want to play senior football." Indeed, a lot of clubs have made the step from junior to senior in the past decade or so: "I remember we beat the Brides in a junior league final nine or ten years ago and we also played against Glyde and O'Connells at junior level. We have to look at clubs like those - and the Sean O'Mahonys - and try to get where they are. We have very good players now and if nine or ten lads click at the same time then we'll take a lot of stopping against most teams. "Next year's intermediate championship is going to be very tough with a number of good teams coming down and the likes of O'Connells and Dundalk Gaels still there, but I'm sure we'll get up and running once we get a management team together and sort out our preparations. I think we might have gone back into training a bit too early in 2006, especially after the long season we'd just had, so maybe we'll benefit from a longer break this time… "We have a core of players here - lads like Alan and Brian McCartney, Shane Callan and Cormac Malone - and these guys can push us on to better things." Though he's still only 26 himself, Robbie has already been an outstanding servant to Na Piarsaigh. And times are good on the Rock Road: "This is the best team I've played on. So far I've only won a junior league and a junior championship [2002], but this is definitely the best footballing side the club has produced and we're seeking intermediate silverware next. Hopefully this is a team that can bring Na Piarsaigh forward. "Most of us grew up together in and around the Bay Estate/Muirhevnamor area and there's a strong bond between the players. We get great backing from the community and also from the committee. They have upgraded the facilities with a superb new floodlit pitch and it's now up to the players to pay them back. "It's not so long since we were seen as a feeder club for the bigger powers in Dundalk but those days are gone now. We are playing a better standard of football now and our players want to stay on and wear the Na Piarsaigh jersey. There's no dominant team in the town anymore and there's nothing between ourselves, Clan na Gael , Dundalk Gaels or Sean O'Mahonys on our day." Even towards the end of October, Na Piarsaigh were still getting 26/27 lads out training on Tuesday nights. There's not a lot of clubs in Louth that can say that. "We've always had the numbers at training and we've always been able to have a bit of craic as well. It's a big help when lads get on and want to play together," Robert concludes. Alan played a captain's role Already a veteran of the Na Piarsaigh first team at the age of 25, Alan McCartney served the club as captain in 2006. While the talented attacker was disappointed that the Rock Road men didn't make a greater impression, he remains confident that they are young enough and good enough to continue pushing for a place at the top table of Wee County club football in 2007 and beyond. As Na Piarsaigh captain in 2006, Alan McCartney hoped to get his hands on the Louth intermediate football championship. The black and ambers were tantalisingly close to booking promotion to senior fare in '05 and hopes were high that they might finish the job this time around. Alas, even though they comfortably retained their intermediate status, Na Piarsaigh's year never really went according to plan. "We wouldn't be that happy with how the season panned out," Alan confirms. "At the start of the year our aim was to try to get out of the group stage of the championship but we failed to do so for the second year in a row, which was very disappointing. Once again, we lost to a team in a lower division than ourselves (Sean McDermotts) and you couldn't be happy with a result like that. "It's not that the team isn't fired up or anything or that we're not putting in the effort, but for some reason we haven't got the results we're capable of in the championship. Even the first day, against Glen Emmets, we should have played a lot better. We got through that one but then slipped up against the McDermotts. Losing to O'Raghallaighs finished us off. We can always beat O'Raghallaighs in the league but can't seem to get the better of them in the championship. Everyone was up for it but things didn't seem to happen for us." It's a young team, though, so time is on their side and the killer instinct will come with added experience - a fair assessment? "We do have a very young squad and I'm one of the oldest already, but I think we should still be doing better with the players we have…" Na Piarsaigh were agonisingly close to going senior in 2005, when promotion slipped through their fingers. If this was disappointing, then the failure to build on that effort is equally frustrating: "If we had gone up senior, the probability is that we would have come straight back down," Alan accepts. "We thought the extra year in intermediate would stand to us and we expected to do much better in 2006." At least they never slipped into the junior trapdoor… "To be honest, the notion of going junior never really occurred to us. We always knew we were good enough to either stay intermediate or go junior. We have played junior football in the past and it can be difficult to get out of but we're playing at a higher level now and we don't want to go back. We never even contemplated that possibility. But we don't want to stay intermediate either. The lads in the club all want to play senior football. "Apart from a few of us, most of the lads are under 22. The club has shown great ambition by developing new facilities - including new floodlights and a clubhouse - and we have to match that now by going senior…" What are the prospects for 2007? "Looking at the teams coming down from senior, there's no reason why we can't beat those sides. There is a stigma sometimes when an intermediate team plays a club that was senior, but with the players we have at the moment we have nothing to fear from the likes of Roche Emmets, the Clans or the Plunketts. We can definitely compete for an intermediate championship. "Two-thousand-and-six was a year when we didn't perform at a high level. It was a funny year. We didn't get out of the group stage of the championship and we just did enough in the league, and that was the season over. We have to look forward now. We don't want to be going through the motions like that. At the very least, we want to be earning ourselves a good crack at senior football." Nine years after making his championship debut, Alan was delighted to captain Na Piarsaigh in 2006: "It does add a bit of extra pressure but captaining Na Piarsaigh was a real honour for me. It's something I always wanted to do. With the current age profile of the team, it came around a bit earlier than I expected. I was both surprised and honoured to get the captaincy. It would have been nice to collect the intermediate championship, though." But Na Piarsaigh are nicely primed for a genuine onslaught in 2007. Tweet

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