Two-thousand-and-five was a remarkable year for Mattock Rangers. Under the astute guidance of Paddy Clarke, the Collon men captured their second SFC (adding weight to the 2002 breakthrough success), won the inaugural Leinster senior club league and also claimed the all-county league Division 1B crown. The triple success was the story of the year in the Wee County in '05, much to the obvious delight of club stalwart Seamus Maguire. Seamus Maguire is a Mattock Rangers clubman to the very core of his being. In his capacity as the prime driving force behind North East Transport and Logistics, the amiable club PRO also acts as official team sponsor to the Collon outfit. When 'Wee County 2005' caught up with Seamus shortly after Mattock had completed the treble of Leinster league, senior championship and Division 1B title, he was in understandably high spirits: "It's been a great year. We've done ourselves justice this time and it has been wonderful. We were very disappointed in '04 when we got to the semi-final and didn't perform against Cooley, so we had a point to prove." Nobody could argue with the merit of Mattock's 2005 SFC heist. Shorn of key men throughout their campaign, the Collon men eventually emerged from the Group of Death (requiring two play-offs despite opening with successive victories) to take their place in the last eight. Victories over Oliver Plunketts and Naomh Mairtin set up a final showdown with familiar foes Newtown Blues on Sunday October 2. It was the third meeting of these two great sides in this year's competition and Mattock made it 2-1, finishing strongly to record a superb 1-12 to 2-6 win and take possession of Joe Ward for the second time in four seasons. Of course, every successful team needs a bit of fortune and Seamus is the first to concede that Mattock did benefit from the rub of the green at times: "We were lucky in a sense in that we survived some close shaves," he accepts. "We were drawn in a tough group with the Blues, Glyde and O'Connells. Our traditional record against the Blues has been poor and we hadn't beaten them in 16 championship meetings since the 1960s, so there was a monkey on our backs. "We beat them by a point in the first round, in what was probably the most exciting game of the championship. We then beat O'Connells but Tallanstown beat us in the last game, which meant a three-way play-off to decide Group B. "The Blues hammered us by eleven points in the first play-off so the monkey was back to an extent, but luckily we sneaked past Glyde Rangers in the group decider and we returned to our old style of football again for the Plunketts game." From there on there was no stopping Mattock, as manager Paddy Clarke added to his impressive haul of county SFC wins in five different counties. Seamus notes: "Paddy was a soccer man originally and he played in goal for Drogheda United. He started his GAA career with Collon and brought us to county finals in 1973 and '76. I think he felt there was a bit of unfinished business to be taken care of…" Seamus has been active at committee level with the local club for the best part of three decades. He's current PRO and is also official sponsor of the club, through North East Removals, which is part of North East Logistics. Naturally, Seamus was delighted that Joe Ward returned to Collon during the course of the three-year sponsorship deal. North East Logistics was founded in 1978, specialising in logistics, freight forwarding, and regional distribution throughout the 32 counties as well as (long- and short-term) warehousing at its Tinure Business Park base in Monasterboice. North East Removals came on stream 13 years ago and operates on a worldwide basis, specialising in home and office removals as well as furniture storage. With treble-winning Mattock Rangers emphatically back on top of the pile in the Wee County, the people of Collon can look back on the events of 2005 with great pride. If anything, the '05 success was even sweeter than the 2002 breakthrough, proving that the maiden victory wasn't a once-off. But what are the hopes for 2006? "The club's view is that we have another crop of young lads coming on and the future looks promising. We have some very young players on our starting team already in the likes of Adrian Reid and Daire Englishby and then we have players like Keith and Darren Brennan starting to come through, so we should remain at the forefront. "There's fabulous talent and I'd like to think that we can defend our title successfully next year, even though teams will be on to us and it will be tougher. "We won the championship this year despite a lot of injuries. We were missing our playmaker Christy Grimes for most of the year, which was a huge loss. Christy possesses great vision and distribution and is very much the heartbeat of the team. To win the championship with him missing so many games was a big achievement. Okay, we had luck on our side at times, but we'll be confident next year if we have our full complement to select from. "With the nucleus of the 2005 team available again, we have a chance. We'll certainly be in the running and playing in Division 1A will also stand to us." Self-belief shouldn't be a problem either. With two SFCs in the bag inside four years, Mattock Rangers are currently in the middle of their Golden Era. It could get even better. Tweet

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