Herald the young heroes writing their own history

Dunboyne… 2-13

St Colmcille’s… 2-12

AFTER EXTRA TIME

Life is indeed like a box of chocolates. You never do know what’s coming next. And if been wheeling around this big old ball for four and a bit decades has taught me anything, it’s that such being the case is one of life’s simplest yet greatest blessings.

I, and it would be wagered throngs near and far, am nowhere near ready to even begin the task of processings so much of what has gone on in recent months. Beginning with, personallly speaking, the double devastation dolled out to the Kealy family within the last year.

Right, so no doubt you’re saying ‘They’re not from Dunboyne’. But the clan in question are so respected and admired within the county and far beyond that the deaths of Maria and Denis caused shudders off the Richter Scale.

Then, closer to home, both myself and herself were and still are on the injured list to varying degrees of severity. That’s not something new and will most likely be the case sooner rather than later.

However, nothing or nobody could have prepared our community for the manner in which it has been plunged into grief, despair, heartache and bewilderment twice in a matter months.

Firstly owing to the tragic passing, following an accident in Vietnam of young Matthew Kennedy just three months ago and then, in a scenario that still doesn’t seem real, a light was extinguished from the life and soul of our village and much further afield when Damien O’Reilly was called to the polling station up top long, long before his time.

I learned, the hard way, a long time ago, that it’s utterly futile trying to fathom why the wheels of life rotate as they do. If the solution to that conundrum was readily available some of us would never get out of bed. Better to just have faith it is indeed a long road that has no turn.

And, perhaps most importantly in the current climate, that poignantly driven sporting success can emerge from the embers of tragedy. For example, no matter what I might think of Mickey Harte in some ways, how he has helped teams he has been involved with and so many others scale their own peaks is to his immense credit.

Now, it is a source of unwavering pride to have been a selector when St Peter’s, Dunboyne won the Meath MFC for the first time on December 22nd 2002. Of course it’s nice to be part of something historic, but they are also the records you love to see broken.

So it was when a second Delaney Cup was added to our haul in 2014. From whence many players emerged who went on to feature on our panel which lifted the Keegan Cup four years thereafter. Hope springs eternal that similar will transpire following today’s exilerating conquest of the always valiant St Colmcille’s.

Before getting to that, though, we must first go back. To 1995 and the first emergence of what would still be regarded by some as the best Minor football amalgam ever fielded by our club. Audaciously talented, comprising players such as David Gallagher, Leo Relly, Ken Gannon, John Ryan, Paul McKeon, Paul Watters and Paul Gannon.

Talented as that group of players unquestionably were, they were also among the most unlucky amalgams we ever sent out. From the width of a crossbar seeing them come up short against Simonstown Gaels in 1995 and having the misfortune to encounter a St Cuthbert’s Bohermeen combination who, owing to their vast catchment area and the quality of players at their disposal at the time they would have been more than capable of defeating a lot of adult club teams.

***

December 22nd, 2002, was an unusually busy football Sunday for the time of year. That late in the season, the Leinster Club SFC Final between Dunshaughlin and Mattock Rangers of Louth would’ve been more than enough for one day. But no, on this day, by the time the ball was thrown in on the senior action, the biggest part of my day’s work had already been done. Owing to yours truly having the honour and privilege of being a selector with the Dunboyne Minor football team which won the county title for the first time in the club’s history.

At this point, an admission, I more or less piggybacked into their success story as what was an exceptionally gifted group of players had already annexed county titles at every age grade up to that point under the guidance of PJ Conway, Sean Whyte, Kieran Clince and John McGarrell before they very kindly allowed me to tailgate into their entourage. Still, it is of course a source of great pride to have been part of history.

That said, there are moments in history which the eclipse thereof are extraordinarily positive. Such as when, in 2014, an Andy McEntee-managed crew again brought the Delaney Cup back to the parish.

Anyway, going back to those who were Brendan Mac Namee’s charges in the mid to late 1990s, there has been a pattern of fruitful minor teams germinating into senior titles for our club. 10 of Mac’s men were on the senior panel for our maiden Keegan Cup triumph in 1998 while there was a similar throughput from our 2002 panel when Meath’s most important football trophy spent another Christmas with us in 2005 and that trick was again repeated in 2018.

***

So, without to try and do Fergus Gibson out of a job here, it would be very much hoped that Sunday’s epic victory over our old adversaries from beside the seaside will indeed be ao,, springboard to a bright future for the black and amber.

However, at this point once again, it must be admitted that I would have known little if anything about John Delaney’s team until it was discovered there were quite a few of them involved with the county team in their age grade.

Those who were under the direction of Stephen Morgan were actually desperately unlucky not to make it to a Leinster final, but, so impressive were Cian Duggan and John Harkin – allied to the fact there were at least two more of their colleagues were on the bench – meant the club wouid have to have a serious chance of doing well at the same level.

Having said that, going back to the county Minor team for a minute, there’s no doubt in my mind that Cian Commins of Seneschalstown was the biggest eyecatcher thereon. Therefore, it would have been felt the Yellow Furze outfit would have been the most stern opposition

Not for the first time, though, it ended up being ourselves and St Colmcille’son,a, a collision course for glory. Firstly in the league final and then on the biggest day of all. You often here of history repeating itself and – gloriously in this case – it was a case of right place, right time for our lads.

Back in the 1990s, on two separate occasions, we ventured forth into the bearpit of Cuthbert’s territory (including my first and so far only spin to Cortown, now there was an adventure and a half) and came away with comprehensive victories.

Only to be rightly stuffed when it came to the rematch in the knockout stages. However, in the most recent instance, it was a case of hoping to be on the right side of a role reversal as the men from beside the seaside had got the better of our lads in the league final earlier in the season. Whether young lads read into previous results or are in any way superstitious I don’t know but they certainly set about making a statement early on here which would lead me to be believe that at least half of that possibility carried credence.

For there’s no better way to lay down a marker early on than to rattle your opponent’s onion bag twice. Which Dunboyne did courtesy of Sean Delaney* and Josh Felle**, those ‘majors’ coupled with the pinpoint accuracy of John Harkin in front of goal allowed the black and amber take a 2-06 to 1-03 lead down the tunnell at half time.

When the front runners tagged on another score on the resumption, a fickle mind could be forgiven for assuming that was ribbons on one side of the Cup. Those of us who’ve seen our teams do battle with representatives of Pairc Ui Ris over a long number of years knew better.

Sure enough, the two shades of blue came roaring back thereafter and once the scores were tied at 2-09 apiece two things were clear (a) it was going to be point for point from then until the end and (b) extra time was more probability than possibility.

A match that goes to extra time, literally and metaphorically, is a whole new ball game. Decades of dealing with such scenarios gives an onlooker a few pointers on what to expect:

Scores will quite often be at such a premium that one or two could swing it either way for whoever is dealing with the build up of lactic acid the better. And the other thing you will quite often see in an extra 20 minutes is one star shining that bit better than the others in the constellation.

Depending on your age, Meath fans will remember Kevin Foley boldly going where he had never gone before against Dublin in 1991, a great Ballinlough man espousing Devine inspiration against Kildare six years thereafter or the blonde Messiah putting the chopper to Louth’s ambitions in 2002 before jetting off to finish being Best Man at a wedding in Wexford!

In our case, it wasn’t so much ‘Hark the Herald, Angels sing, glory to our newborn King’ as herald Hark(in) the hero, glory to our Minor kings. Because, in the extra one third of a game required to separate these two valiant and gallant sides, our John on the 40 did all the adding to our credit account.

Firstly notching our two points in the opening additional ten minutes, which left Dunboyne slenderly ahead – 2-12 playing 2-11 – with only two handfuls of minutes left to enable the avoidance of a county title shamefully being decided by penalties. For an organisation that made more money out of replays than NAMA did out of people’s misfortune I cannot understand why the GAA now treat the very notion of staging an Act II of matches with such disdain.

Perhaps it’s only natural that when something is as influential in your life as the four match saga of 1991 between Meath and Dublin was in mine that it can be called upon a disproportionate percentage of the time as a reference point. Yet even whilst hunched against a radiator fighting off a close encounter of the third kind with Covid on Sunday last, my mind drifted back to June 23rd of 32 years ago. Now read on…

Act III of the blockbuster. It would probably be fairly well accepted that Dublin could and probably should have won all four matches. However, if there was one day we had a chance to bury them with little fuss it was that day. Goals from Colm Coyle and Bernard Flynn at what appeared to be the opportune times should’ve started the backfilling. But two slices of bread don’t make a sandwich. It’s the filling in the middle that make the difference.

And, at times when the Meath attack looked that blunt it wouldn’t cut its way through butter, the Dubs were lathered all over us like the lad who was taking the horse to France smearing the Kerrygold all over the spuds. But then, when the sh** is about to hit the fan, it pays to go back to basics. To what you know best. It wasn’t in that Meath team to give up, it isn’t in any of them, but for most other teams, when Coyler galloped forward and was hauled down just beyond the dugouts on the old Cusack side of Croke Park, the result would’ve been a Hail Mary free kick at best.

Oh, at just for good measure, it was three minutes into injury time at the end of extra time. Into a strong cross field wind. Ger Canning described what transpired thereafter thus: “Brian Stafford, he brought this game to extra time with his seventh point of the day; He’s now on nine points, and you can make that ten!” Tommy Howard’s whistle shrilled immediately thereafter. Another draw. Meath going home the happier. Again. Keep shaking the tree and the fruit will eventually fall.

***

This wasn’t Croker or anything like it, but, to these young footballers, it was the biggest game in their burgeoning careers to date. Somebody sent me live video footage of the preamble to and execution of what ended up being the winning score in the latest Dunboyne-St Colmcille’s epic. To the one seeing eye here it was the Stafford moment re-incarnated. A ’45’, after more than 80 minutes of epic action, into the teeth of a quarrelsome breeze whistling out of the hospital adjacent.

No matter, Harkin steps up and ploughs through it like a farmer turning over a sod to begin a new season. Strangely apt. Herald the young heroes writing their own history.

DUNBOYNE – J. McCormack; C. Tobin (0-1), R. Kelly, P. Dempsey; C. Rohan, A. Howlin, C. McCormack; E. Nuzum, H. Healy; J. Felle (1-0), J. Harkin (0-10), C. Duggan (Capt.,0-1); J. Doyle, J. Lonergan, S. Delaney (1-1).

SUBS – B. Comiskey for Dempsey, S. McNulty for Lonergan, D. Ryan for Kelly, C. Gallagher for Doyle, C. Murphy for Rohan.

Referee: Pat Coyle (Curraha)