Secretary's Report to AGM 2015

Mickey and Paddy who have now come to the end of a three year journey. From my own point of view it has been a pleasure to work with them. For 2016 I want to wish our new Manager Diarmuid Scullion all the very best and I ask all committee members, players and supporters to get right behind this man as he tries to help us build for the future. Also I want to congratulate our Senior Team Captain Mark McCullagh on his team’s effort this year.

On our youth front this year we also had a good year and we may not have secured a lot of silverware but good strong progress is being made. .

At Minor level Mick Meenagh and Conal Kelly were in charge for the year. This year’s panel were pretty tight for numbers but competed well at Grade Three all year. In the League the minors played 7 games winning 5 of them to top their group. We did qualify for the semi-final of the League but were beaten by Trilick 4-12 to 1-14. In the Championship we reached the final only to be beaten by Aghaloo in Fintona on a score line of 4-13 to 5-11. Overall the minors had a great season and all player’s showed a marked improvement. I want to thank Mickey and Conal for all their work with this group of lads this year.

The U16s were taken by Ryan Keenan, Padhraic Meenagh, Malachy Coyle plus Stevie Conway and they competed in Grade 1. In the League they played 10 games winning 5 and qualifying for the ¼ finals of the League. That game was away to Killeeshil and it ended in a narrow defeat of 2-11 to 2-10 after a great game of football that we could have won. In the Championship we were soon to renew our rivalry with Killeeshil when we faced them at home on the 12th of September. After a pulsating game we came out on top on a score line of 0-9 to 1-5. Next was a Championship semi-final in Dunmoyle with a very strongly fancied Dungannon side. This is a game that will live long in the memory of anyone whom attended. The game by half time seemed to be gone from us and we were 9 points down, indeed we conceded the first point of the second half to go 10 points down. But our young lads found the strength and courage to deliver the comeback of all come backs. We ran out the victors 3-13 to 2-12 and a Grade 1 County Championship final beckoned against Dromore. So on Sunday the 10th of October our U16s were the curtain raiser game before the county final. Towards the end of the game there were almost 10,000 people cheering us on. The game itself was one that we deserved to win on the day. The game ended in stalemate in a 1-11 to 0-14 point draw. But there were a number of very questionable refereeing decisions in the last 15 minutes of the game that brought Dromore back into the game. The replay was set for Saturday the 24th of October and it was just one of those days that we did not turn up, we missed a lot of scores and Dromore ran out the victors on that day. This team has huge potential and let’s hope that we can help them deliver on that potential in the years to come. Congratulations to Ryan Keenan, Padhraic Meenagh, Malachy Coyle and Stevie Conway on the excellent work done with these boys this year.

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