Ballinabrackey's best known footballer Chris O'Connor featured in Meath's three championship matches during a disappointingly brief 2008 campaign for Colm Coyle's team, while there was another bright star from the club playing a very significant role in the minor side's highly successful year, Damien Carroll. However, on the domestic front the club endured another disappointing Junior Football Championship campaign when injuries were a big problem and they failed to successfully negotiate the divisional stages. O'Connor's emergence as one of the most talented young players in the county has been a source of great satisfaction for all associated with the club and watching him lining out against Galway, Tyrone and Cork in last year's championship demonstrated the extent of the rapid progress the defender has made in such a short space of time. This year he proved that he can score at inter-county level as well and rowed in with two points in the Leinster Championship opener against Carlow at Croke Park when he started at right corner-back. He was in the same position when Meath lost to Wexford in extraordinary circumstances at Carlow's Dr Cullen Park to exit the provincial race and was introduced as a substitute during the All-Ireland qualifier defeat to Limerick at Pairc na nGael. On the evidence of his showings with the Meath minors this year Carroll could be set to join O'Connor on the county senior panel at some stage in the future. He proved himself a highly capable midfielder with an eye for the posts and his performance in the Leinster semi-final against Longford at Pairc Tailteann when he was switched to centre half-forward and scored 1-2 was vitally important in a hard-earned victory. "It was great for the club to have players on both the county senior and minor teams this year," said club secretary Thomas Quinn. "Chris and Damien are two great young players; they are great lads." In Carroll's case it can be rightly stated that playing football for Ballinabrackey is in the blood. "Damien's father Mick and his grandfather Jack Carroll were both great footballers for Ballinabrackey," Quinn added. "Damien is certainly maintaining a strong family tradition with the club. He looked like a great prospect from as far back as I can first remember him playing under-age football." Carroll's memorable year with Pat Coyle's county minor side certainly wasn't mirrored by Ballinabrackey's less than satisfactory championship campaign which saw them fail to reach the knockout stages for the fifth year in succession. The last time they reached the business end of the Junior Championship race was in 2003 when they lost to Dunsany in a quarter-final and the previous year they were edged out by a point at the penultimate hurdle against Nobber who went on to win the title. That defeat six years ago was particularly hard to take because 'Brackey led by three points with five minutes to play on a dreadful day at Dunderry, only to concede a point and a goal subsequently, the latter from a penalty. It was a harsh way to exit the title race. Ballinabrackey haven't won the junior title since 1985 and their latest effort to bridge an ever lengthening gap this year met with further frustration. The management team was made up of Chris Kennedy and Colm Brazil, who was a member of the Meath side which lost to Down in the 1977 All-Ireland MFC final. When the championship draws were made early in the year they must have felt they had a realistic chance of at least earning the opportunity to play knockout football in late summer or early autumn. They were drawn in group B, a section that also included Kildalkey, who only returned to adult football action after a lengthy spell of inactivity last year, the second string team from Navan O'Mahonys, Slane, Kilbride and Dunsany. It was a tricky looking section, but by no means impossible to emerge from. Ballinabrackey's first two matches in the All-County 'A' League Div. 4 pitted them against teams they would also have to face in the championship - Kildalkey and Kilbride. In the league they defeated Kildalkey by 1-17 to 0-4 to open the competition on a very positive note, but that was followed by a defeat to an improving Kilbride team on a 0-4 to 1-7 score line. Those outcomes were to be repeated when championship time came around. Boardsmill was the venue for a first round encounter against Kildalkey and 'Brackey won by all of 11 points (1-14 to 0-6). That gave them the desired winning start to get their qualification bid up and running, but the reality was that they were sure to face significantly stiffer tests of their credentials against the stronger teams in the section. Those sides included Dunsany who they met next time out at Longwood. Dunsany have been one of the most consistent teams in the junior grade for many years and when they reached the knockout stages this term it represented the 10th time in 11 campaigns that they did so. It was always going to be a testing examination for Ballinabrackey and they just came up short when losing by the minimum (1-8 to 1-9). After that setback it was important to bounce back with a morale boosting victory, but another narrow defeat followed in the third round when O'Mahonys edged them out by 1-7 to 1-6 at Dunderry to inflict serious damage on their aspirations of a place in the knockout stages. A further blow followed when Kilbride, who had earlier beaten them by six points in the league, inflicted a 0-11 to 0-3 defeat at Dunsany and when all the teams in the section had played four games, Kildalkey were the only side below Ballinabrackey in the pecking order. Kilbride were at the head of affairs with a maximum eight points, Dunsany had six, O'Mahonys four, Slane three, 'Brackey only two and Kildalkey just one. Ballinabrackey's last scheduled group match was against a Slane team that performed way below expectations for one of the more fancied sides in the competition. However, the fixture was essentially meaningless because Kildalkey had only one point after completing their programme and were doomed to staying in that position and fighting for survival in the grade. Dunsany topped the section on eight points by virtue of a superior score difference to runners-up Kilbride and O'Mahonys were third on six. With players of the caliber of O'Connor, Carroll and the experienced John Curry in their ranks Ballinabrackey should probably be figuring in the shake-up at this level. However, there is no doubt that the absence of Trevor Bannon through injury was a very significant loss. Like Curry, Bannon was a member of Martin Barry's team which won the All-Ireland JFC title in 2003, so he is clearly not the sort of player they want to be lining out without. "Trevor only played one game with us for the whole year," Quinn said as he reflected on the campaign. "He injured his knee at the end of last year. He had keyhole surgery on it and was a huge loss to us. It isn't easy to manage without a player like him. "Kevin Darby was another very good player we really missed because of injury. At one stage I think we were without five or six lads. That's too many. It was a big disappointment not to qualify from the group. "We beat Kildalkey very easily in the first games of both the league and the championship. Looking back at it, that was probably the worst thing that could have happened, to win so handily. "Then we lost by a point to Dunsany and Navan O'Mahonys in our next two championship games. We led up until the last few minutes in both. Dunsany got a late goal to beat us. We should have won both those games. We should have qualified really. We then lost to Kilbride. They beat us easily. They also beat us in the league and are a big, strong team." After the disappointment of the 2008 championship, it's now a case of looking forward once again for Ballinabrackey. "We have a good minor team this year and good under-14s," Quinn added. "We have good young players coming through. Damien Carroll and Danny Quinn are very good minor players, so I am hopeful for the future. We will have a good go at the Junior Championship next year." Ballinabrackey have now been waiting 23 years to win another title in that grade. The search will go on into 2009 and with a bit of better fortune on the injury front and a full panel of fit players to choose from they could well be assembling a bunch of men capable of bringing the championship famine to an end. Having players lining out with county teams is good for the profile of the club and carrying the Matthew Ginnity Cup out of Pairc Tailteann on an autumn evening in the near future wouldn't do it any harm either. Tweet

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