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Edenderry's Remarkable Success The Big Football Story Of 2012

Thursday, 12 January 2012

IT is difficult to know what to give pride of place to? Another miserable year on the intercounty front, a managerial appointment debacle that dragged the County Board into the mud or the couple of real good news and heart warming stories that emerged.
With Offaly football at a low ebb, it is important to be as positive as possible and precedence deserves to be given to two stories that set the pulse tingling, the heart buzzing in 2012 - One an absolutely massive one that sent shock waves through the Offaly football world and the other, a considerably smaller one and confined mainly to a small area but nonetheless a huge one that demonstrated just how important the GAA is to small communities.
Edenderry's success in the Tullamore Court Hotel Senior Football Championship took everyone by surprise, including themselves if the truth be told. Now the proud holder of the Senior Football Championship on ten occasions, they plunged the depths of despair when they were relegated to intermediate football in 2006.
That was a massive blow to a once mighty club who had dominated Offaly football for almost a decade when winning the Dowling Cup in 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2001. After the '01 success, however, they entered into free fall, descending first into the ranks of the also rans and then suffering the embarrassment of relegation.
That provided a huge wake up call to a club who had taken their eye off the ball and let things slip from the top to the bottom, particularly at underage level. In the few years before relegation, they had begun to put good foundation in place at underage level but the drop to intermediate really forced them to get their act together.
Unsurprisingly, Edenderry cantered to the Intermediate Football Championship in 2007, beating Walsh Island in the final but on their return to senior, they continued to struggle - Operating closer to the relegation trap door than the top table.
Prior to the start of the 2011 Senior Football Championship, the usual suspects were on the short list of contenders - Champions, Rhode and Clara were raging hot favourites with Tullamore given an outside chance but Edenderry were just not in the reckoning.
As the championship gathered pace over the summer months, there was little to suggest that an upset was on the cards - Rhode looked vulnerable at times but still easily topped group 1 with maximum points from their five games and at this stage, it was difficult to envisage anyone else winning the Dowling Cup.
It was clear that Clara were struggling from an early stage. They qualified comfortably enough from group 2 but didn't find true consistency as they lost to Gracefield and drew with St Rynagh's and Walsh Island. It was definitely not the form of champions but with the quality of player at their disposal, they were still Rhode's main challengers.
Indeed, talk of relegation dominated the early months of the summer with both Tullamore and Shamrocks staring disaster in the face - Tullamore eventually scraped out of trouble but Shamrocks went down after an atrocious season, losing to Tubber in the relegation play off and they will now be hoping for an Edenderry type revival.
Edenderry meanwhile went about their business in a professional but unspectacular manner. They comfortably qualified from group 1 in third place with six points - They made an inglorious start, losing to Erin Rovers in their first game but sealed a quarter-final place with wins over Tubber, Tullamore and Ferbane before losing out to Rhode in their final group game: They performed well in a 1-14 to 1-8 defeat and this game proved to be an important stepping stone for them.
It was good form by Edenderry and it was clear they had turned a corner but there was still no real evidence to suggest the events that did emerge.
Lady luck smiled on Edenderry in the knockout stages - First up they met St Rynagh's who had confounded predictions by finishing second in group 2. However, a quarter-final in Tullamore proved a step too far for the Cloghan men and they provided meagre resistance in a 2-15 to 0-6 defeat.
In the semi-final, Edenderry came up against an improving Gracefield but again it was a favourable draw for them - Gracefield had made decent progress under Padraig Dunne but had obvious limitations, particularly in attack, and they were well beaten, 0-10 to 0-3.
Meanwhile Clara battled on - They eventually got the better of Erin Rovers in the quarter-final, winning by 1-11 to 0-7 before producing their best form of the year when beating Rhode by 0-14 to 1-5 in the semi-final.
It was by far their best performance of the year and it was enough to send them in as hot favourites for the final against Edenderry.
Edenderry, however, were reading from a different script. With three former stalwarts, Peter Brady, Finbarr Cullen and Kevin Guing, at the helm, they entered the final without fear and produced a superb display of committed football to triumph by 0-9 to 0-8: Despite the one point margin, it was a quite comprehensive and impressive win by Edenderry, who performed gamely before losing out to Athy in the Leinster Club Championship.
Cappincur's Day In The Sun
THE second heart warming good news story of the year was Cappincur's success in the Junior Football Championship.
A small club, situated just outside Tullamore and in Daingean parish, Cappincur have enjoyed spells of success in the past, particularly from 1987 to the mid '90s when they won the Intermediate and Senior 'B' Football Championships and competed well at senior level for a couple of years before making the inevitable descent back down the ranks.
Long time residents in junior football, they had developed some talented young players in recent years and this yielded a very handsome dividend in 2011.
Cappincur were behind clubs such as Daingean, Clara and Tullamore in the pecking order at the start of the year but they were the form team from the start.
After comfortably progressing out of their group, they received a mighty scare before beating Killeigh in the quarter-final. Clara were accounted for in the semi-final and in the final, Cappincur were clear masters against their parish rivals Daingean and deservedly returned to intermediate ranks.
It was a tremendous success for Cappincur who have one of the smallest catchment areas in Offaly and they have the players to make their presence felt at the higher grade.
Managerial Fiasco Took Spotlight Off Under Achieving Offaly
IT was another miserable year on the intercounty front for Offaly with teams under performing in the championship while the seniors once again failed to get promotion from Division 3 of the National Football League.
The story of Offaly's football year is all to simple to recall:
Senior footballers - Hammered 2-16 to 0-8 by Wexford in the championship; Recovered well to beat Monaghan in the All-Ireland qualifiers but then saw their season ended by Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds. Endured a disappointing league campaign, winning four and losing three games. They were not far off promotion but a defeat by Westmeath in their final game condemned them to another season in Division 3. The championship defeat by Limerick brought the curtain down on
U-21 footballers: Went into the campaign with high hopes but gave a very poor performance when losing by double scores, 0-12 to 0-6, to Westmeath in Athlone. Minor footballers: Recorded a 3-7 to 1-9 win over Wicklow in the first round but gave a disappointing display when losing by double scores, 0-16 to 0-8, to Kildare.
The spotlight really should be focussed on Offaly's under achieving seniors but the appointment of new management dominated talk in the latter months of the year.
It turned into a debacle as it dragged on for months and months and the County Board came in for stern criticism before Gerry Cooney, a Tullamore native who has lived in Meath for most of his life, was eventually appointed.
The appointment process got off to an unsatisfactory start when three people from the one parish, St Brigid's Mick Casey and Laz Molloy and Rhode's Ger Noonan were appointed onto the selection committee.
With two Rhode men, Tom Coffey and Stephen Darby among the leading contenders for the vacancy, this was a very unsatisfactory state of affairs and it meant that the selection committee were on the back foot from the start.
After a few weeks, it boiled down to three candidates, Coffey and Darby and former Dublin footballer, Jack Sheedy. However, the three men were unfairly treated as the process dragged on for what seemed an eternity and the committee dithered. Eventually patience snapped as both Coffey and Darby withdrew their names and Sheedy was ruled out.
Now they were back to square one, though there was speculation that Darby was still interested. Eventually, Gerry Cooney, a selector under Kevin Kilmurray in 2006 and 2007 entered the fray and he was appointed - A highly rated football man, Cooney was a satisfactory appointment and he is now building a new team with Ciaran McManus and Karol Slattery having retired and a large number of last year's panel unavailable or dropped.
It will be a long process though and Cooney needs time and patience as he bids to bring Offaly onto the next level.
Double Consolation For Rhode
RHODE'S failure to retain the Senior Football Championship may be the abiding memory of their year but there was still plenty of consolation for them as they won the Intermediate and Junior 'B' Football Championships while their parish team, St Michael's won the U-21 Football Championship.
Rhode's success in the intermediate was the biggest surprise as they shocked parish rivals, St Brigid's in the final. With a mixture of young players and former seniors, they played some fine football and deserved their success.
In the Junior B Football Championship final, Kinnitty had ample play for a rare success but eventually Rhode's know how shone through while ST Michael's regained the U-21 title after a four year gap.
In the Minor Football Championship, Ferbane/Belmont continued their revival at underage ranks and they recorded an easy win over Edenderry in the final.

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