The 2006 season may have ended in disappointing fashion for St Patrick's but there is no sense of despair at the Lordship club as they are already looking to set the record straight next year by bringing home the Joe Ward Cup. After seeing his side fall at the final hurdle to St Joseph's, key forward, Diarmuid Murphy believes the experience will stand to his team and the relatively young side is already determined to respond next year. "It was very disappointing to lose in the final after the big effort we put in to getting there, but we have to admit that on the day we just didn't perform as we know we can. "The Joes were very well prepared as I suppose they had the three games against Cooley to look at us, while they played with a great hunger on the day. "Perhaps on another day it might not have gone for them but on that day they made it happen and were deserving winners. "Although we were naturally very disappointed, you couldn't begrudge them their win. They had a great season in the championship and have some great players." Many people have suggested the three games against Cooley in the semi-final took its toll on the team, but Diarmuid doesn't see that as being a major factor. "People have said that those three games took too much out of us, but I really don't believe that. Any team preparing for a final needs big games and, apart from a final, it doesn't come much bigger than a semi-final against Cooley. You need to play against the strongest teams and in front of big crowds, so those games should have stood to us, but that is not the way it worked out." Despite the disappointing outcome, Diarmuid still believes there is a big future for the club and with so many players in their early twenties, he feels they should be among the contenders for the Senior Championship in the coming seasons. He is hoping that current manager, David Reilly, will also be sticking around as Diarmuid is full of praise for the efforts of the former Stabannon man. "David Reilly coming in at the start of the year gave everyone a big lift. His record and club and county level means that he commands great respect and we all started out with the intention of proving our worth to him. "With the help of Mickey Murphy and Paul Breen, it didn't take him long to get to know everyone and I have to say he was very good and you had to be impressed with his tactics. "In the middle of the season when everyone needed another bit of a lift, Shorty Treanor came in to work with the forwards and overall it was a very good management team. "I don't know what his plans are for next year, but I hope he will stay on for another season. The fact that we came so close this year will probably mean he will see this as unfinished business and hopefully he will want to set the record straight next season." In terms of players, Diarmuid believes that St Pat's will rely on most of the squad from this year and that the experience of this campaign will prove to be an incentive next time. "The likes of Darren Kirwan and Johnny Keenan are the only ones who might be thinking of retiring, but it is not the first time that has been mentioned so hopefully they will stay on. Apart from that the average of the team is only about 24 and there is still a great desire for success." Diarmuid points out that within that squad there are many quality players and a number of younger lads pushing through onto the starting 15. "Paddy Keenan is one of the best players in the county and it was a real boost for us when he decided not to take up the offer to go to America for the summer. We have have lads on the county team such as Ray and Dessie Finnegan, Colin Goss along with Sean Connor, while the return of Paudie Mallon during the summer gave everyone a great lift. "Added to that we had Paul Buckley playing his first season since moving from Offaly and he was excellent in defence, while Liam Oliver and Jamie O'Hare also made a big impression. The fact that St Pats also reached the Junior 2A Championship Final means there are plenty of players coming through. "The attack was also missing the quality of Damien Connor, who was out injured for most of the season, so if we can get everyone back for next season, there is no reason why we can't compete for the title. "Coming so close this time out is a big incentive for us to go one better, and I think if everyone puts in a big effort, we won't be far away." Looking ahead to next season, Diarmuid is hoping that the new league structures will bring about an improvement as this year's league campaign was less than satisfactory. "With no relegation from Division 1A it was hard for a lot of players to get going at the start of the season, so it was a long time from January until the real action in the championship began in May. "We did well in the ACC Cup at the start of the season, reaching the final against Cooley, but with Louth going so well in the National League and the Tommy Murphy Cup, many league games were postponed so there was no real momentum. It ended up in a situation that in October we played two league games on consecutive nights. "Hopefully next year it will be better as we need to have regular games to keep players interested." This year's championship campaign began with a victory over Dreadnots in Group B, before St Pat's overcame eventual champions, St Joseph's in the next outing. They ensured top spot by defeating Oliver Plunketts in an exciting game at Dowdallshill, to set up a meeting with Kilkerley Emmets in the quarter-final. Despite not being at their best in that game at Knockbridge, St Pat's came out on top with a 0-10 to 0-8 victory. Next up was the clash with peninsula rivals Cooley Kickhams in the semi-final in what turned out to be a dramatic three-game saga. In each game Cooley got off to the better start before St Pat's came back from the dead to level matters, before the Lordship men eventually prevailed in extra-time of the second replay. Although they missed out on the ultimate prize when losing the final, there was some consolation for St Patrick's when they picked up the Junior 2A Championship title. The Lordship men came up against old rivals, Cooley Kickhams, in the decider and once again proved too strong for their neighbours as they scored a 2-6 to 0-8 victory at Clan na Gael Park. All White as Pats claim junior 2A glory While the primary target of the Joe Ward Cup slipped through their fingers, St Patricks managed to secure some major silverware in 2006 by capturing the junior 2A championship with a convincing 2-6 to 0-8 defeat of old rivals Cooley Kickhams in the final at Clan na Gael Park on Sunday October 22. Without getting carried away, victorious captain Paddy White says the consolation prize provided a nice end-of-season boost for the Lordship men. A fortnight earlier at the same venue, St Patricks were outfought by St Josephs in the 2006 Louth senior football championship decider. However, the Pats second string returned to the Clans on Sunday October 22 and duly annexed a notable consolation prize - the junior 2A football championship - with a memorable four-point defeat of peninsula neighbours Cooley. An adult championship had been secured and at least one important piece of silverware would winter in the Lordship clubhouse. Not the one they would have preferred in an ideal world, but it was still nice to claim the reserve title. Having knocked the Kickhams out of the senior championship at the end of a thrilling three-game semi-final contest, the Pats repeated the dose in the 2A decider as Simon O'Shaughnessy's brace of goals shortly before the break gave the winners a 2-2 to 0-4 half-time advantage and ultimately proved the difference between the teams. After the match, County Board vice-chairman (and Cooley clubman) Jim Thornton had the honour of presenting the cup to winning captain Paddy White. A man who has tasted senior glory with the Pats in the past, the victorious captain was delighted to add a first junior medal to his collection and honoured to be escorting the silverware back to Lordship. After all, there are no easily-won trophies in the Wee County any more. Referring to the victory, Paddy admits: "It was a big honour, absolutely. For a club the size of the Pats, it's still a massive thing to be winning county titles and especially to beat our neighbours in the final. A lot of people might say it's only a junior championship, but this is my first junior medal and I really appreciate it. "Some of the lads on the team are at the start of their careers. We had a lot of youth in the team and it was a great occasion for them. It was a great experience for them to play in a county final. It was a pressure situation and I thought they handled it well." Having failed in their brave bid to regain Joe Ward, Pats were suddenly faced with the possibility of a barren year. Suddenly, it was up to the junior team to strike a blow for Lordship. "I suppose the fact that the Pats hadn't won the senior championship added to the pressure," the victorious captain notes. "Ideally, we'd love to have been playing for a senior/junior double. "Hopes were high that we'd win the SFC. The seniors and juniors were training together all year and it was a big blow to the club when we lost to the Joes. That was the one we really wanted and suddenly the onus was on the second team to salvage something from our season…" Indeed, outright success completed a remarkable transformation as the juniors had started the year gingerly and only really improved as the senior team's form buoyed the whole club. "At the start of the year, we were very poor in the league," Paddy accepts. "We were struggling to get players out, but when things started to go well for the seniors that gave us a real lift and we were going well by the time the junior 2A championship started. The pressure was on going into the county final because there was a belief that Cooley were a better junior side than the Pats and even a lot of our own supporters didn't think we'd do it, so we were glad to prove ourselves on the day." Thomas 'Mossie' Flynn, Shane Murphy, Gerry Cumiskey and Shorty Treanor prepared the junior team. The juniors trained alongside the seniors all year and then worked on their own for the fortnight between the SFC decider and the Junior 2 final. They were still getting 20 lads out and had a settled team by now (even though they lost two for the county final, including broken collarbone victim Barry Murphy). "Before the junior championship started, we lost a lot of players in the group stage of the senior championship and also in the quarter-final against Kilkerley, but we still had a nice settled squad available for the championship and everybody knew where they stood," says Paddy. In a straight knockout format, St Patricks accounted for Glyde Rangers and Sean O'Mahonys at home before squaring up to Newtown Blues at the semi-final stage. After two pulsating contests at Haggardstown, the peninsula side prevailed in the replay to book a final date with Cooley. It was almost as if somebody had written the script beforehand… The White name is synonymous with St Patricks football. Paddy's brother Damien wore the No.7 shirt in this year's county final, while another brother Evan was also part of the senior panel. Paddy himself was a real leader as he nudged the second string to championship glory. What does he remember about the county final itself? "The pitch was wet and heavy which made things difficult for both sets of players, but it was a fairly good game with no off-the-ball stuff. We got the two goals when we were 0-4 to 0-2 behind and that put us in the driving seat. I didn't think we'd be caught after that. "They came back strong at us in the second half and we were slightly on the ropes but we got two or three points in a row and that steadied us. Both teams could have played better but the conditions didn't help. We played very well in both games against the Blues, though we were glad to force the draw the first day." Paddy reckons the Cooley/Pats rivalry isn't as fierce on the pitch as the hype would like us to believe: "It's more the supporters than the players. A lot of us actually get on well. Cooley are very strong at junior level and they have a big pool of players. We were delighted to beat them - not so much because it was Cooley but because it came after we had lost the senior final. If Cooley had beaten us, we wouldn't have begrudged them the win." What does the junior 2A championship mean to the Pats? "We have a piece of silverware at adult level. It would have been nice to win the senior and junior championships - and we nearly did. Obviously, this isn't as good as the Joe Ward, but it keeps things ticking along for next year. It's a good experience for the younger lads and it's a way of keeping them involved and interested for a couple of years until they're ready for the first team. "Winning Joe Ward is our aim at the start of every year and, when you're going well, it brings everybody on at training. When the juniors are still tipping along in the background, it helps the club along. The senior players would be there to watch us and to encourage us and they would be as keen to see the club win a trophy as the next man. "St Patricks is a big club with high expectations but we still appreciate things. We like to win trophies of any description - senior, junior, underage or ladies. It's all to the benefit of the club at the end of the day and that's what this is all about." Tweet

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