When a definitive history of Donaghmore Ashbourne GAA Club is finally compiled, 2008 will certainly be regarded as one of the milestones in the club's history, writes Michael Doherty. It has been a rollercoaster of a year with the opening of our new home in Killegland West together with many on the field successes combined to give us the highs, while the loss of a number of popular club members at both ends of the year bringing us to a low. However through this journey Donaghmore Ashbourne has witnessed the strength of the club, the sense of community and above all an indication that our future is very bright. As a club, we can look back with a sense of achievement and a sense of pride as our year went as follows: Our New Home After years of planning, fundraising, the endless hours at meetings and hard work by so many people within the club, December the 14th last was the moment when it was all worth while as we finally got the keys to our new home. It's true to say that in the preceding weeks and months there were times when the construction programme looked to be slipping but credit to the Development Committee under the guidance of Gerry Delaney, the design team and the construction team they were prepared to make the sacrifices to get us back on track and achieve the deadline. When we did get the keys there was an aura of pride and achievement about the club, particularly among the older members who had worked so hard for this moment. It was great to see the excitement of our younger members as they were in awe of the facilities during the first couple of days of being shown around. We have a home, a focal point and place to build for the future. The facility itself cost in excess of 6.5 million to construct and has been funded by fundraising, GAA grant aid, Meath County Council grant aid, Lotto funding, the sale of our facility in the Wotton and additional finance. The external facilities include two floodlit full size playing pitches, one juvenile playing pitch and a seated stand area overlooking the main pitch. Internally the facility consists of a 40 m x 25 m indoor arena complete with artificial playing surface, ten dressing rooms, meeting rooms, weights room, club shop, function room and bar facility. Club shop So far our first twelve months has seen us attract many high profile visitors to the club and this has been a bonus particularly as we leverage to promote the games among our younger members. Shortly after we opened our doors our first visitors to the club were the Ard Comhairle of the GAA, who under the outgoing Ard Stiúrthoir Liam Mulvihill held their December meeting in the club. This year has also seen the visit of the Waterford hurling team who held a training weekend in the club in March and we also had the honour of host Sean Boylan and his International Rules team on two occasions as they prepared for their success trip to Australia recently. Other events in the club included the hosting of an All Ireland Under 16 Camogie Final between Derry and Offaly, together with the Gael Linn Inter Provincial Camogie finals. At club level we hosted the Ladies football finals, the Camogie finals and a number of league and championship games in hurling and football. The Official Opening Moving from our old home in the Wotton to Killegland West was always going to set new challenges for the club. This time last year we were a GAA club with a small clubhouse that was seldom opened and today we have the task of running both business and an ever expanding club. Thankfully the newly formed management committee under the guidance of Brendan O'Connor stepped up to the plate and made the transition seamless. Naturally with any new start up venture there were teething problems but these were address in an efficient manner. The first big test for the management committee and indeed the club was our Official Opening which was held on the May Bank Holiday. The amount of support and help that the organising committee received from our members for this weekend truly showed the community spirit within the club. Be it in the preparation of the grounds before the event, the running of the games, the barbecue, the shop or stewarding, everyone who was asked gave of their time in a positive manner. The official opening was a weekend of activities that included games for all our teams, nightly entertainment and of course the official Opening Ceremony itself which was followed by our first Inter County match. The club was very fortunate to also have the two most famous pieces of silverware in attendance compliments of Kilkenny and Kerry County boards as we were joined by Liam McCarthy and Sam Maguire. This unique opportunity to have photos taken with both trophies caused a stir by young and old alike. Uachtarán CLG Nicky Brennan performed the official opening of the club in front of a great crowd and complimented the club on our fantastic achievement. He praised the vision of the club and its members to undertake such a project and identified the importance and value that Donaghmore Ashbourne GAA Club give to the community. He wished the club every success both on and of the field for the years to come. Our first Inter County match was also took place on the official opening weekend when the Royals hosted our neighbours from further up the N3 Cavan. Both teams gave an entertaining display of football in front of a packed house. At the end of this weekend we had further galvanised our community spirit and showed that when we all work together anything is possible. Adult Football When we reviewed the football season of 2007 we considered that winning A and B league titles and being crowned intermediate champions was a great achievement and showed the progress the club was making on the field. Naturally at the start of this year our aim was to secure our positions in the higher grades of both league and championship football with a view to pushing forward in the coming years. Although at the time of going to press our season is still ongoing but so far we have exceeded our expectations. In summary we have recorded a number of successes including the winning of the Junior B title and gaining promotion from A League Division 2, B League Division 2 and B League Division 5. Other successes from this year include the winning of the inaugural Intermediate 7 a side competition in Ratoath and fielding a fourth team in the league. As mentioned earlier the winning of the Meath Intermediate championship was a great success for the club last year. As well as putting the club in the top flight of football it also opened the door to the Leinster Intermediate championship competition. To close out on this chapter, as we still had an interest at the time of going to print for the 2007 yearbook we had a great run in the competition. Our first round game saw us defeat Dundalk Gaels after a roller coaster of a game that needed extra time. This result gave us a home match against Wicklow side Stratford in Navan and this game was less difficult as we ran out 6-9 to 1-5 winners. The semi final draw gave us another away game with Edenderry of Co. Offaly the opposition. This was one of the best games we were involved in all year and showed the spirit and that never say die attitude that our lads had. A late Kevin Lanigan point two minutes into injury time forced extra time and during this period our younger team gave a five star performance, particularly in the second half to run out 1-16 to 1-10 winners. The Leinster final gave a mouth watering fixture of having to play neighbours Fingal Ravens of Dublin. This was a unique provincial final considering that of all the teams in the province the two teams contesting the final were close neighbours with only a couple of miles between both pitches. With the Raven's manager, Mick Deegan living in Ashbourne and many of the players knowing each other there was great excitement coming up to the game. Unfortunately for our lads we underperformed in the opening period of the game and trailed at the break by 1-6 to 0-3. We did have a much better performance in the second half and although we came within a single point with minutes to go we lost out in the end on a final score line of 1-9 to 0-9. Having had a well earned break our football teams were back at training in January with plenty to look forward to. This year the stakes were high as the club looked forward to our first year in the senior championship. The championship draw which took place in Dunboyne drew us out in a five team group with Kilmainhamwood, Trim, Duleek/Bellewstown and Dunshaughlin. All of these teams had years of experience in the top flight. Our first outing at the end of April fixed us against Kilmainhamwood in Seneschalstown. Although Kilmainhamwood were tipped as relegation favourites this was potentially anyone's call as we were the newcomers to the competition. We got off to a great start and by the end of the first 8 minutes were found ourselves 2-2 to 0-0 ahead thanks to goals from Tony and David Morgan. With our confidence up we ran out comfortable winners on a score line of 2-15 to 1-5. Our second game was fixed for early May and this time we had a much tougher test against a seasoned Dunshaughlin team. We knew heading the short trip to Ratoath that this game will show where we stood in terms of quality. We got off to a great start with David Morgan finding the net on our first attack. Unfortunately we hit six wides and had conceded 1-3 before our second score of the game which came in the third minute of injury time in the first half. Having regrouped at the break we did give a better performance and matched Dunshaughlin in all areas of the pitch but just lacked that little bit of experience at critical stages in the game. Having held the opposition to one score from play during this period the concession of a couple of needless frees resulted in our lads losing out by 1-7 to 1-6. The third game of the campaign was a case of youth against experience with Donaghmore Ashbourne facing Trim in Walterstown in late June. As the local media reported at the time this was a game of frees, niggles and wides. Although both sides were level at the break 0-3 a piece we controlled the game but managed 8 wides. A goal from Andrew Tormey mid way through the second half was enough to give us a 1-8 to 0-9 winning margin. The last game of the group stages paired our lads against the Duleek/Bellewstown amalgamation side. This game took place in Navan in mid August. This game had the extra spice of giving automatic qualification to our lads if we claimed full points. A draw was enough for the opposition as they had the superior score difference. It was a case of not converting our possession into scores and despite dominating the first half of this game we were only ahead by 0-4 to 0-3 at the break. Although both sides traded scores throughout the second half it took a late Tony Morgan point to secure a draw and a place in the playoff places. It was early September and we were still in the senior championship in our first year. Our playoff game gave a trip to headquarters in Pairc Tailteann where St. Patrick's were the opposition. This was our best performance of 2008 as we played with intensity, speed and intelligence. We had a great start with Andrew Tormey firing home within the first minute. He added two points from frees as we led by 1-2 to 0-1 after 5 minutes. Kevin Lanigan extended the lead with a goal at the end of the first quarter as we raced to a 2-5 to 0-6 half time lead. With confidence high we continued to dominate and added a further 8 points to our tally en route to a 2-13 to 1-8 victory. This resulted in a place in the quarter final of the championship. A week later we were on the road to Pairc Tailteann, this time to face the competition favourites and beaten finalists for the last two years, Navan O'Mahony's. This was a big test for the team and we needed to be playing to full potential to get a result. Although we had the aid of the driving wind and rain in the first half there was little between the team for the first 10 minutes or so. Disaster struck at the end of the first quarter when Ciaran Ellis was dismissed and within two minutes of going a man down we had conceded two goals. We did mange to reorganise at the break and although we gave a better account of ourselves in the second period the fact that we are chasing the game with a man down allowed the opposition to counter attack and pick of points at will as the game proceeded. Although losing out by 2-12 to 0-05 we did learn a lot for the game. Overall it was a good run in our first year at the top grade but we were disappointed not to have gone further in the competition. On the league front our senior team had a very good year with promotion to Division 1 secured and a league final win achieved against Navan O'Mahony's. We opened our league account away to O'Mahony's back in February and suffered our only defeat in the campaign. We bounced back with good wins over Castletown and Cortown. Our game against Drumconrath was abandoned following an injury to one of the visiting players while our trip to St Ultan's resulted in a draw. Our best performance in the league was a 5-20 to 0-9 win away to St Colmcille's. We received a couple of walkovers during the campaign we secured our promotion with a 2-9 to 0-8 away win over Trim at the end of September. The team made it to the quarter final of the Feis Cup but fielding a weakened side against Syddan in Duleek we made our exit from the competition. Junior B The success story for adult football this year is the winning of the Junior B championship by our second team. We started off the campaign with a good 2-10 to 0-9 win over neighbours Ratoath in the first round in Seneschalstown in April. Our second game paired us against one of the many first teams in the competition when we met Shane McEntee's Moynalty in Walterstown in mid May. Despite only scoring three times in the first half we managed to lead by 2-01 to 0-05 at the break. We had enough changes to win this game but lost a lot of possession and when the final whistle blew we found ourselves beaten by 0-12 to 2-05. Our third game saw a young team take on an experienced St. Patrick's side in Duleek. Unfortunately the experienced opposition showed a little more guile and ground out a 1-09 to 0-11 win and at this point we thought our chances of promotion were gone. Our last game of the group was against Syddan in terrible conditions in Bellewstown. That Sunday morning was a game of two halves as there was a gale force wind and no shelter and although we only turned up with 17 players this was a game of character and guts. Playing against the wind was very difficult but we gave a great performance in the first half and with the wind at out backs we ran out comfortable winners on a score line of 3-07 to 0-05. Although we thought we were out of the competition before the game it turned out that this win was enough to secure a playoff place. Blackhall Gaels provided the opposition in the playoff game which was played in Dunboyne. This was a good hard game of football with both sides giving their all but our younger side managed to grid out a victory and secure a place in the quarter final thanks to a couple of good saves by Terry Bruton. Our quarter final game saw the lads meet another first team side and competition favourites Clonard in Trim. We gave a great display of fast moving football to lead at the break by 1-08 to 0-05. The second half was game of tit for tat as both teams went score for score for moth of the game. Although the opposition had us under pressure in the final stages we managed to hold out for a 1-14 to 0-13 win. Our semi final gave us another chance to revenge our second round defeat as we were fixed to play Moynalty in Rathkenny. In front of a great crowd both teams served up a thriller that required extra time to separate the team. This was a hard hitting game with both sides determined to make it to the final. We trailed at the break by 1-06 to 0-05 but it was a man of the match performance by Cathal Regan that led to the sides being 0-13 to 1-10 at the final whistle. Although a number of players on both sides showed signs of fatigue in extra time our lads showed the greater hunger and lead at the interval by 0-17 to 1-11. Moynalty tried hard in the final period to get goals but our defence held strong to secure the win on a 0-18 to 1-12 score line. And to the final. This was the junior team's second championship final in three years. Like the previous two games the opposition was a first team club and this time the stakes were higher as another local team, St. Vincent's of Ardcath were the opposition. We got off to a great start with a goal from Faolan Smith on 8 minutes after a great pass by John Paul Lynch. We continued to dominate the half and at the break we were 1-05 to 0-02 ahead. The second half was an even affair and although we were always in control the final 10 minutes gave our supporters a nervous time as the team subconsciously decided to defend the lead. Although we had a couple of scares we did manage to hold out for a 1-08 to 0-08 lead. Ciaran "Flipper" Byrne gladly accepted the cup on behalf of the team. On the league from our second team went unbeaten in the competition and qualified for the league final. We recorded wins over Dunderry, St. Ultan's, Nobber and Dunshaughlin together with walkovers from Trim, Walterstown, Syddan and Castletown. Unfortunately we last out in the final as Dunshaughlin jest had the edge on a score line of 0-09 to 0-08. The team look forward to playing in Division 1 next year so hopefully there will be more games. Our Junior D team had a very good run in the group stages of the competition and managed to win most of the games comfortably. They opened their account with a 0-17 to 1-07 win over Drumconrath in Donore in early June. This was followed by an equally impressive 5-12 to 1-04 win over Boardsmill in Dunsany a week later. Our round three game against Longwood did not take place and we received a walkover in this game to secure qualification to the quarter final. Our last game of the group stages saw the team travel to Simonstown where the winners of this fixture against Carnaross would top the group. We gave another confident performance to run out 5-12 to 1-04 winners. Our quarter final game saw us return to Dunsany to play Trim in early August. Again we were quick out of the blocks and with Brian Fitzgerald in flying form we lead at the break by 1-09 to1-04. We did encounter a tough period early in the second half but managed to weather the storm and run out 2-13 to 1-06 winners. Our semi final was a repeat of the 2007 semi final as we travelled to Seneschalstown to play Clann ns nGael of Athboy. This was one of the most disappointing days for the junior group throughout the season as it was a game we should have won. We led at the break by 1-05 to 1-02 and although under pressure in the second half we will still ahead by two points going into injury time. With four minutes of injury time played it was enough for the Athboy side to snatch a draw and extra time. Unfortunately we could not match the opposition in the extra time and lost our on a score line of 1-13 to 1-11. On the league front our third team who play in Division 5 B had very little games this year but managed to gain promotion and a place in the league final thanks to a couple of victories and walkovers. This year also saw the club enter a fourth team in the league and this team competed in Division 6B. With a combination of both youth and experience the team managed to hold its own. Hopefully next year we can get a couple of more games for the players. In addition to all the above football activity our first team travelled to Ratoath to play in the first ever Intermediate seven a side competition. This was played on All Ireland football Saturday. With 32 teams in the competition our lads we drawn in a group of five teams. Although starting off with a draw we managed to adapt to the style of the game quick quickly and grew in confidence. We managed to make it all the way to final where St. Farnan's of Sligo provided the opposition. In a great display we took the honours with an 8-09 to 2-11 score line. Hurling In 2006 we started our first batch of under 8 hurlers and we had a grand total of 8 players. In 2008 these numbers have now grown to 25. Training for these players started in early January in our new indoor arena, which has proven to be a great success and continued up until the end of July. We participated in 3 indoor blitzes in Dundalk in the early part of the year. These were well attended and gave all the kids games on a regular basis. We also competed in St. Martins and Dunshaughlin astro turf complex and we held a number of our own blitzes, all of which really brought our players on to a new level. At Under 11 age group we went from strength to strength as the year went on. We started our year in April with a 1 pt win away to St. Martins and finished the year with a 22 point win over St Martins in the C County final. In between we had some highs with a win over Ratoath at home and low's such as loss to Blackhall Gaels on a score line of 1 point to no score. Although the group stages and play-offs were finalised before the end of June St Martins requested the final be postponed as some of their players were already gone on holidays. We reluctantly agreed and took our own summer break. Some of the lads got hurling over the summer with the Under 12's and this was very noticeable when we started to get organized at the end of August. We had a number of training sessions both indoor and outdoor, including one on the main pitch, which the boys really enjoyed, prior to the final at the end of September. The final was played at Blackhall Gaels and the players surprised a few people including the Chairman of the Juvenile County Board with the quality of our ground hurling. The match opened with a fine point from Shane Rea from a free taken off the ground. However this was followed about 30 seconds later with a goal to St Martins. Our lads didn't panic and played their way back into the match and scored 2 goals during the remainder of the ground hurling phase. When the game went to full hurling we scored 3 more goals from Peader Farrell 2 and Kenny Crowley 1 and a fine point from a long range free by Brendan Meehan to leave the half-time score Donaghmore Ashbourne Ash 5-02 St Martins 1-00. The 2nd half began with a huge effort by the players and scored 3 more goals in the ground hurling phase via Peader Farrell 2 and Patrick Roche 1. As we entered the final 15 minuets the mentors decided to give as many players as possible a run. This did put us under some pressure defensively but when Stephen Carton rose ala Tommy Walsh and grabbed the ball from the sky, shook off a couple of attackers to clear the ball down the field we knew the day was ours. St Martins did finish with a consolation point but there was a huge cheer when referee Gus Martyn blew the final whistle. Danny Deery then accepted the cup from our own Ken McKenna and we all made our way in a cavalcade from the 9 milestone back to the clubhouse. The Under 12 hurling championship was played during the summer months. Unfortunately we only got to play in 2 matches in the championship because of other teams withdrawing and no fulfilling away fixtures. This resulted in our team and St Martins qualifying for the final. Although we were beaten in the final our players showed great determination. The positive note is that this is a very young team with only 4 of the team actually 12 year old and the rest of the team were in the under 11 and 10 age groups. The Under 13 team played 5 matches in their championship winning 2 losing 2 and drawing 1. We beat Navan by a point and Boardsmill by 6 points. We lost to Kildalkey by 9 points and to Dunderry by 6 points on both occasions we were missing important players. This left us having to beat or draw with Rathmolyon in the final round. In what was a titanic struggle we made the trip worth while when Aidan O'Connor scored an injury time free to snatch a draw and put us through to the semi final. We were defeated by Kildalkey in the semi final but our players can be proud of how they played and the effort they gave. Well Done to Aidan O'Connor, Dara Walsh, Mark Donnelly and Liam Finn who were selected to play for the Meath U13 development squad. Ken Mc Kenna and Davey Gaughan were the coaches for this team. Also congratulations to Shelby Leahy who played on this team for making the Meath Camogie U14 team considering she is only 13 this was a great achievement. Our Under 13 team did get some silverware at the end of the year when we went to Greystones to compete in a Leinster Feile. We lost our first game to the hosts. We then beat a team from Wexford and drew with Naomh Moninne from Dundalk in a tempestuous affair which qualified us for the shield final against Naomh Moninne. In what was a great game of hurling our players showed great heart and won with a point from Shelby Leahy in the last minute and to add to that Aidan O'Connor was named player of the tournament. Our Under 14 team had a great year on the field. We started our year when we took part in a Meath/Kildare league which we used as preparation for our championship. We played 6 games in the league winning 3, drawing 1 and losing 2 but the main thing was that all of our players got plenty of matches in the summer months. The real success of this competition was in the fact that we started this league with 12 players and finished it with 24 and led us to great run in the championship. In the championship we played 5 games with victories over Longwood, Kells, Blackhall Gaels, Wolf Tones and Moylough/Kilskyre which qualified us for a semi final against Longwood. This turned out to be our best performance of the year when we won 7-12 to no score. This victory qualified us for the final against Blackhall Gaels. This was a day when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Through no fault of any of the players that's just the way things go in finals sometimes. After a nervy start we went 4 points behind but fought back to out the deficit to 2 points just before halftime. In the second half we went 4 points behind but our team showed great character and fought back to level the game heading for fulltime. After a sequence of missed chances, Blackhall caught us on the break and scored the winning point from a free. It was very disappointing for the players themselves that they didn't play their potential in the final but they did themselves proud by fighting every inch of the way. Congratulations to Martin Quinn and Sam Benville for representing our club on the Meath U14 team and both did very well when playing in the Tony Forrestal All Ireland Tournament. Our Under 16 hurlers put in a huge effort this year and made huge progress under the coaching of Peter Williams. They lost their first 2 matches against Killyon and Kildalkey narrowly and then had a very good win against St Martins. Unfortunately we didn't qualify for the knockout stages of the championship as our lads were only getting going when the championship finished for them. This is something that the county board will have to look at for next year as 3 matches in a whole year is not nearly enough for players to get any chance to make any real progress. Despite this we are very happy with the progress our lads made and if they keep at it success won't be very far away. At the time of going to print our Minor team have only played 1 game in the competition so far and unfortunately the lack of match practice meant it took our lads time to settle in but we were always chasing the game and lost out to Kilskyre. Our Under 21 team has yet to start their competition for 2008 At adult level we entered the year with optimism hoping to build on last year's success and finally make the breakthrough at Intermediate grade. However things did not go to plan and instead of leaving the Intermediate grade for the higher ranks of Senior we found ourselves dropping to the junior grade after a number of disappointing performances. Like any year when success is not forthcoming people tend to look for excuses but it would be fair to say that we played many of the games with an under strength side. The retirement of Noel Woods and Peter Whyte together with some dual players opting to give their commitment to Senior Football contributed as well as the team suffering a number of losses through injury. In addition to this the Intermediate Group only consisted of 6 teams so there was very little error for margin. We lost out to Dunderry and Gael Colmcille in the opening two games when on both occasions we under performed. Our third game was against Blackhall Gaels in Ratoath and in this outing we showed a better attitude. We did have enough chances to win this game but when the final whistle blew we had to settle for a share of the points. With two games remaining there was still an outside chance of getting a playoff place but playing Kilskyre in Kiltale we struggled to score and lost out by 3-08 to 0-08. Going into the final game against Longwood we needed a victory to retain our Intermediate status but again we fell short. We do know that 2009 will be a challenge for the hurling code but we already have put in place a development committee to review our situation and plan for the short, medium and long term. Hopefully we can get adult hurling in the club back where it belongs. At Junior B level our second team acquitted themselves very well this year and have been showing good progress. In April we ran a new after school hurling & camogie programme which offered 4th & 5th class primary students the chance to combine doing 1 hour of homework with 1 hour of hurling in our indoor arena. This proved to be a huge success with 22 players taking part and out of the 22, 17 of them were new players and the vast majority of them joined teams in the club. This programme was used as a proto type as we only used one school in the programme (St. Declan's) but hope that we can expand this to the other schools and possibly triple our numbers. This year we ran our own in house Summer Camp. It was a hurling camp for boys only as there was a camogie camp run separately. It was a great success as 38 boys took part aged from 5 -13years old. We provided club gear for taking part for which everyone seemed very happy with. The camp was run under the guidance of Padraig Durkan. Congratulations to Liam Finn, Aidan O'Connor and Daragh Walsh who represented the club on the Meath Under 13 Hurling team. In addition we also had Martin Quinn and Sam Benville who were part of the Meath Under 14 team and finally to David Carey who was part of the Meath Under 16 team and also took part in a Shinty match in Scotland recently. Camogie At the start of the year our Camogie section went into a major recruitment drive to increase numbers. This programme was aimed at all age groups in the club starting with Under 6 right through to adult level. A promotion drive in the schools proved a great success improving numbers throughout all the age categories. At Under 6 level we started our Kindergarten group in February 2008. This was a great first year with up to 25 girls gathering on a Monday evening to enjoy their love of the sport and learning the valuable basics. Although we took a break for the summer the numbers continued for the autumn session. Our Under 8 team trained throughout the year breaking for the summer period. Again we had a very successful recruitment campaign that yielded a playing panel of 40 girls. This committed group worked very hard where they trained and also competed in a number of Under 8 blitz's being run throughout the County' Our girls really enjoyed this experience as they gained valuable match experience as they look forward to the under 10 group in the future. Our Under 10 team have played and grown together for some years now and this proved to their advantage in them competing in the championship this year. They were Shield championship winners for 2008 and the celebrations will be remembered by the girls for many years to come. This ever growing Under 10s team is going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future. The commitment and enthusiasm this year from our Under 12 camogie team was highlighted on and off the pitch. It is generally at this age that numbers of players start to dwindle but this was not the case this year, if anything, it was the opposite. Such is the success of this age group at the moment that it is likely that we will have enough numbers for a second team in 2009. This will Tweet

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