Preparations were excellent all year and Wolfe Tones invariably took to the field with all the groundwork done and the right attitude. “Mickey Kelly, Paddy Fanning, Paul Sewell and Dee Tully put in a lot of work with the team and then Noel came in and did the fitness training and we were in good hands,” John notes. “We have a very young team, too, which will stand us in good stead for the future. Six of the starting team were 19 or under and we have enjoyed a lot of success at underage level. We want to bring that onto the senior team. Most of the young lads in the team at the moment would have won a lot coming up through the ranks and we want to maintain that at adult level.” John himself broke into the first team for the 2011 JFC, having missed the league due to his involvement with the Louth minors. Coming through the underage ranks with Wolfe Tones, he was part of a very successful crop and tasted success at U14, U15 and U16 levels. Even today, there is still plenty of talent coming through on the Wolfe Tones conveyor belt. “We’ve always produced good underage sides and had a good youth system but the problem has been transferring that into adult success,” the 2011 county minor points out. A lot of the current crop have also benefited from representing Louth at various underage levels, what with Development Squads and county minor appearances. John Horan and James Traynor both lined out for the Wee County minors in 2011, while Ciaran Ward and Gideon Lugoye were part of the 2012 Louth minor combination. This experience of pulling on an intercounty shirt will instil confidence in the players, who realise that they are as good as any other footballers in the county and can therefore square up to them without any inferiority complex. “Hopefully we’ll have a few more with the county minors next year and I’d be hoping to maybe one or two of us will grab the attention of the county U21 selectors as well,” says John. “All in all, 2012 was a stepping stone for the club and we’re proud of how well we played. We have more young lads coming through and we hope to push on next year. Four minors came into the team this year and we are setting ourselves up nicely. It was a great performance against Westerns and we hope to build on that.” Crucially, John is confident that none of Wolfe Tones’ fresh crop of young talent will be poached by any of the neighbouring clubs: “We are a tight bunch. We grew up together and we only want to play for Wolfe Tones. I’m confident we can keep this team together and push on and win a junior championship. “Seven or eight of the side that played Oliver Plunketts in the junior quarter-final were under 20 and we only have two players the wrong side of 30, so we can push on with this team and hopefully move up to play intermediate football.”
The U8 panel
Ones for the future - the U7's
The U13 squad
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