JOHN MITCHELS
2012 RESU
LTS
Ready for action, l/r: Adrian Black, William Matthews, Gerry Griffin, Steven Coyle, Phil Smyth, Mark Rooney, James Clarke, Mark Kerr, Diarmuid Durnin, Stephen Campbell, Brian Coyle, Kevin McGahon
MITCHELS OPTIMISTIC The past number of years have represented a relatively busy time for the John Mitchels club, with a lot of work being done to their clubrooms and pitch, culminating in the official opening of Pairc Sean Misteal. By Eunan Whyte.
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he work on the field of play has also been continuing as the proud club aims to reestablish themselves as a force in Junior Football in the near future. The Ballybailie side have endured a barren spell over the past number of years, but in recent seasons they have made progress and with the promise of some good young players coming through, there is a sense of optimism that they were very much on an upward curve at the moment. It is probably a measure of the rising expectations that the John Mitchels will reflect on the 2012 campaign with a sense of disappointment, despite some encouraging displays. Team captain, James Clarke,
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reveals that although there were some impressive performances at times, they ended the year feeling that they could have make a bigger impression, particularly, on the league. A good performance in the championship indicated that there is more in the team than their league position suggests, and the challenge is there to show an improvement in 2013. “Three years ago we went through a season without winning a game but we put in a big effort to try to turn things around. Last year we showed signs of progress as we finished the season strongly by winning one competition and getting to the final of
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another,” explained James. That bit of success gave the players a much needed confidence boost and they began the new campaign anxious to build on that progress. However, as the captain pointed out, it didn’t go as well as they had hoped. “Looking back over the season we have to admit that we are a bit disappointed with it overall. We had been hoping to make a better showing in the league and thought we would get a few more results, but there were a couple of games that we felt we left behind. “We were competitive in a lot of matches but were disappointed that we didn’t pick up more points and we were left frustrated at finishing near