St. Paul's managed three victories and a draw in Group A of the 2006 Junior B Football Championship, but a tally of seven points in the qualifying stages wasn't sufficient to earn the Clonee side a place in the business end of the competition. By Paul Clarke. Their section also included the second string teams from Walterstown, Trim, St. Patrick's, Syddan and Seneschalstown, as well as the previous year's beaten finalists St. Brigid's from Ballinacree and Clonard and, on close inspection, it had the appearance of a group from which they were fully capable of emerging. St. Paul's have certainly experienced the ups and downs of championship and league football in more recent years. The highest of the highs came on that wonderfully memorable day back in 1999 when they marked the close of the millennium by winning the Junior Football Championship, a success that brought enormous joy and satisfaction to all involved with the club and its loyal band of supporters. However, they were relegated back down to the junior ranks in 2001 after spending two years playing their football at intermediate level. And a further two years later in 2003 they suffered another big blow when demoted down to Junior B status. They have also dropped down the grades in the All-County A League. It's not too long ago that they were playing in Div. 3, but Paul's are now struggling to climb their way out of Div. 5. Life back in the lower reaches of championship football hasn't been all that kind to the Clonee club either. They reached the quarter-finals in their first year in the Junior B title race in 2004, but it represented a big disappointment when they failed to make the knock-out stages of the competition the following year when they might have been expected to mount a serious challenge for outright honours. St. Paul's did manage to win a reasonably high percentage of their Junior B matches in 2006, but a team which has seen the departure of a fair few key players due to them joining other clubs and because of retirements since the 1999 Junior Championship triumph still didn't succeed in achieving mission number one and getting out of their section. Of course, the club has also experienced the uncertainly surrounding their playing field in recent times because of the positioning of the new motorway right on their door step and there can be no doubting that such a situation hasn't been helping their cause at all. How could it? When the Junior B Championship action got under way in the middle of April St. Paul's, who were managed by club chairman Michael Curry, with David Higgins acting as a selector, were pitted against a Walterstown team that was later to withdraw from the competition and they made the desired positive start when kicking points with consistency and adding a couple of crucial goals as well to earn a 2-15 to 3-9 victory at Dunshaughlin. Paul's retraced the short trip down the Navan road to Dunshaughlin for a second round assignment against another second string outfit, Seneschalstown, but this time they came away in less happy form after suffering a defeat by the narrowest of margins on a 1-10 to 0-14 score line. Seneschalstown were recording their second successive victory of the competition, but it was Paul's who made the best possible start when Alan Barker, who notched 1-1 in all, found the net with less than 20 seconds on the clock. They went on to lead by 1-5 to 0-6 at the break and stretched their advantage after the change of ends, moving into what appeared to be a winning position. However, Seneschalstown weren't finished and took over completely for a spell to catch their opponents and then push five points clear (0-14 to 1-6). This time it was St. Paul's turn to rally, but they left it too late and the team in blue and yellow held out to win by a point. Paul's needed to bounce back with their second victory of the championship after that setback, but it wasn't to be as they went under by 1-5 to 0-11 to Trim at Dunsany to set in motion a string of damaging defeats that ultimately sounded the death knell to their ambitions of making it through to the knock-out stages. St. Brigid's, beaten by Boardsmill in the previous year's Junior B final and possessing a burning desire to make amends in 2006, provided the opposition in the fourth round of group games at Martry and with the ever-accurate Fergal Hennessy helping himself to an impressive tally of nine points the men from Ballinacree won by three points (0-15 to 2-6). After that very bright opening to the championship against Walterstown, St. Paul's had suffered three successive narrow defeats and when they made the lengthy journey to Longwood to meet Westmeath-border outfit Clonard in the fifth round they clearly did so with urgency, knowing that a victory was essential to get their qualification bid firmly back on the rails. They didn't lose but, significantly, they didn't win either as the sides finished level (St. Paul's 1-8, Clonard 2-5) and that outcome meant that Paul's had already dropped seven points out of a possible 10 - the sort of form that ruined their quarter-final ambitions and left them nearer the bottom than the top of the group. However, things looked quite promising in the first half against Clonard when Paul's pushed into a 1-6 to 1-1 interval lead, but a tally of just two points during a very disappointing second period inflicted serious damage to their hopes of winning the game and Clonard upped their performance considerably on the opening period as they battled back to earn a share of the spoils. Paul's didn't achieve their goal of making the knock-out stages, but at least they finished the group campaign on a positive note by winning their last two games against Syddan and St. Patrick's. The match against Syddan was played at Bective and Paul's left the north Meath side playing an unsuccessful game of catch-up when they made a blistering start which enabled them to open up an eight-point (2-2 to 0-0) lead after only 10 minutes. They didn't maintain that momentum and scored only a point for the remainder of the first half as Syddan closed in on them significantly to trail by only a point (1-5 to 2-3) at the break. However, Paul's got their act together again in the second period and added seven points to be three ahead at the final whistle (2-10 to 2-7). A third victory of the group campaign followed in the last round of matches when Paul's got the better of Stamullen outfit St. Patrick's by 1-5 to 0-6 in a low-scoring encounter and when all was said and done they had won three of their games, lost the same amount and drawn one. A championship that started so positively in April against Walterstown sagged badly in the middle and picked up well when, unfortunately, it was just too late. Their seven-point tally left them in fifth place in Group A which was dominated by St. Brigid's who won all their matches. Seneschalstown finished second on 12 points, Clonard were third on eight and Trim were fourth with seven, but had a superior score difference to Paul's. Club treasurer Paul Garvey is very optimistic for the future of St. Paul's and pointed out that the biggest problem facing the club was the "uncertainly surrounding the field" with the "motorway going right down the middle of it." He stressed that it was "hard to organise things with that sort of uncertainty. Things have been uncertain for the last two or three years regarding the pitch. Whatever happens, we will be without a pitch for two or three years. "It would take time to get a new one and more time still to get it right for training and playing games on. We could face the situation of having a spell where we would have to borrow the use of a pitch from somebody. We are in limbo really. "I would be optimistic for the future if we had a pitch organised. We would be in a position then where we could look ahead and plan. As things stand now, that uncertainty is there." St. Paul's made that promising start to their Junior B Championship campaign with a victory over Walterstown and, while they didn't do enough subsequently to make it through to the knock-out stages, Garvey feels "morale was very good going into the championship." "Yes, morale was very good," he added. "We don't have any problems like that at all. But, being a small club like we are, if two or three players are gone away on holidays or are away down the country for some reason it's a problem for us. The reality is that we just don't have the reserves to replace them like some of the bigger clubs. We really can't afford to lose anybody." Tweet

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