After bitter championship defeats at both club and inter-county levels last summer, plus a bad injury, Latton and Monaghan midfielder Eoin Lennon was glad of another happy ending to 2004 for his club. 2004 is a year that Monaghan's Eoin Lennon can't wait to put behind him. On the county and club front, the past championship season was an unmitigated disaster and the strapping midfielder doesn't even try to dress it up any other way. The words abject and failure may be harsh and blunt but even blinkers couldn't conjure up an alternative picture for the wide-eyed Lennon. "It was a very disappointing year all-round and one I'll want to forget in a hurry. "Things couldn't have turned out any worse.The only consolation is that next year can't possibly be any worse - I hope." Of course, the lows and lows of '04 hit home all the harder for the Latton clubman because of the reasonable, and credible, expectations which he and his team-mates harboured as the year crept to its feet. "The fact that we beat Armagh in the championship in 2003 put us up on a pedestal. "Even though we went onto lose against Down, the supporters felt that because we got so near to the Ulster final that we had every chance of making it in 2004. "Expectations were high among everyone going into last Summer's championship game with Armagh but when we lost the confidence seemed to drain from the camp. "Maybe it would have been different had we lost by just a few points but the fact that we were trounced really rubbed salt into the wound." Monaghan were mediocre while Armagh were awsome when the sides clashed in the Ulster SFC in Clones at the end of May. For once, the gulf in class between the combatants was fairly reflected the final scoreline, 2-19 to 0-10. Armagh were hardly troubled as they secured sweet revenge for their preliminary round defeat in the corresponding tie in 2003. Eoin Lennon admits that it was a right bad day at office for him and his team-mates. He remembers that when Monaghan fell behind by 11 points at half-time he was almost wishing that the referee would blow it up for good "even though we had a good enough spell in the first fifteen minutes but didn't take our chances." "Nearly all my memories of that game are bad. "I didn't play well and very few of the lads played well whereas they were on song." Why? "Even now, I haven't really come up with any answers apart from maybe there was a wee bit of a fear factor as far as we were concerned. "It was almost as if we were fully expecting a backlash from them because of what happened in 2003. "We were looking to each other for inspiration from somewhere but it didn't arrive. "We stood off them and allowed them to play and they've too many classy players to get away with doing that. "Having said that, our heads dropped far too quickly which should never happen. "The team should have been much stronger, mentally, but Armagh had it far too easy the whole way through. "On top of that, they seemed to be very focussed and very motivated for the game and were obviously determined to see that lightning didn't strike the same place twice." Not one who's ordinarily given to making excuses for his team's shortcomings, Eoin makes no apologies for expressing his disappointment at the way the Monaghan/Armagh Ulster SFC clash last May was handled by the match officials. "We got very little from the match officials. "Tommy Freeman and Kieran Tavey were fouled all through the game but got no frees which wasn't the case when Armagh played Fermanagh. "If we had got the frees Fermanagh got, maybe we'd have been a lot closer to them at the end." Eoin regrets very much that the promise shown by Monaghan in 2003 wasn't consolidated in the past year. Interestingly, he rates last year's county team as that bit better than the one swept aside by their Orchard County neighbours. And the fact that Monaghan subsequently under-achieved in the All-Ireland SFC qualifiers when going down to Longford in Clones by 1-17 to 4-15, after extra-time, only serves to underpin Eoin's own rating of the white and blues in 2004. "Again we had our spells but we missed a lot of chances and too often we took the wrong option when we tried to use the ball. "We played better against Longford than we did against Armagh but we still should have won, especially having gone four points in front in injury time. "Even some of our fans were heading for the exit gate at that time. "But the fear factor seemed to kick in again, we lost our concentration and tired near the end." Although it's not his form to proffer such an insight, the Latton stalwart couldn't be faulted for his side's defeat to the Midlanders last June for, along with partner Dermot Duffy, he orchestrated the control of the midfield sector for most of the marathon tie. But even allowing for a double-quick goal by Damien Freeman after just four minutes, Colm Coyle's charges failed to show the killer instinct thereafter and duly paid for their procrastination when Trevor Smullen crashed in his side's fourth goal seven minutes into the second period of extra-time. "In all honesty, after the Armagh game if we had selected a game to provide us with a pick-me-up, we couldn't have done much better than meet Longford. "It was a great chance to redeem ourselves but we fluffed it." Eoin accepts that Monaghan, in 2004, have only themselves to blame for their poor performances. There was no hard luck story to use as a crutch. No doubt a lot of flack followed on the back of the Armagh and Longford bashings. "The feedback from supporters around the county wasn't good, no. "But you expect that sort of criticism and you have to accept it and just get on with it. "The the level of negative vibes I got after the Summer was the worst I've ever been on the receiving end and it wasn't nice." A senior inter-county debutant in 2000 when Jack McCarville pulled the strings, Eoin is unequivocal in stating that 2004 was by far his worst season with Monaghan's premier footballers to date. It was thoroughly painful, he suggests. "I don't want another one like it." Is there the talent in Monaghan though to prevent such a championship whitewash again? "I think so. "We're not as bad as some people have made us out to be. "I know a lot of people are questioning whether there are the footballers in Monaghan who are good enough to do things in Ulster or further afield. "But I think there is enough talent in the county. I think football in Monaghan is as good at club level as it is in any other county in Ulster. "Anytime a club from Monaghan takes on a club from any other county, the Monaghan club more than holds its own. "There is a gap there at the moment between us and the Armagh and Tyrone's but we train as hard as any of them and I think that if we can just get that bit more self-belief, things could happen for us. "Westmeath showed over the year that it can be done if the mental approach matches the hard work in training. "They got a new manager in and gelled and created that bit of history. "Fair play to them but we can be every bit as good as them." Eoin is hoping that the appointment of a new manager to succeed Colm Coyle will give Monaghan a boost in the New Year. On a personal front, Eoin could do with a boost as knee ligament trouble suffered just a couple of weeks after his side lost out in the Monaghan SFC semi-final last September to Scotstown really put the tin hat on what was a self-confessed dreadful year for him. That injury kept Eoin out of Latton's recent League Division One triumph, as the trophy was retained. "2005 can only be better for me," Eoin optimistically states. For his sake, let's hope so. Tweet

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