Tuesday November 4th, 2003
By Terry McLaughlin

SOMETIMES in sport there is a feeling that a certain club or team or individual is destined to make a special mark in a special way in terms of the history books.
The mark of a special club is the ability it can generate in terms of a collective spirit to achieve a goal, to be able to salute a particular milestone with the tangible reward of recognition.

This season, after 75 years of trying Saul GAC achieved its goal of senior football. It was a marvellous acknowledgement of the real meaning of sport and of the importance of sport to a community.

In the overall scheme of all things football it may, at first glance, not compare with the glorious exploits of senior county battles on the road to Croke Park.
In its own way however the delivery of senior football to the parish of Saul, after so many decades of disappointment, is a much sharper reflection of the true meaning of the GAA than any media hyped trip to Dublin or Clones.

For more than anything the promotion of Saul to the highest levels of senior football in Down has helped put down a marker for others to follow.

It is a club that set out on pilgrimage from its picturesque home in the shadow of Saint Patrick with a firm set of principles, both on and off the pitch.

The central core element in the Saul strategy was a unity of purpose and a commitment to discipline over a five-year time frame.

Progress on a yearly basis was the bottom line. The management team of Eddie Harney, Paul Evans and Brian Curran, and Barry Quayle set the goal of maximising performance and potential, both collectively and individually.

It was a challenge that the players were asked to respond to. It was a challenge that the Saul players didn’t refuse.

They were asked above all else to be true to themselves as sportsmen and as custodians of the Gaelic football tradition.
Backed by a progressive committee and an enthusiastic support base, those principles were rewarded by the realisation of promotion a fortnight ago after play-off victory over Clann Na Banna.

Over the years the supporters of the club had reluctantly become used to Saul being a team that suffered from a see-saw syndrome of flirting with promotion from division four and fighting against ignominy in the lower reaches of the same division.

It was a stop-start pattern of hope and despair that did little to fuel any realistic hopes of reaching the Promised Land of senior football.
Just keeping alive the ethos of Gaelic football was all that mattered to the hard core of dedicated GAA old guard families like the Holland’s and the McKinley’s and the McGrath’s scattered throughout the Parish of Saul.

Anything else in terms of playing success was a bonus. To simply survive and keep playing the game was the priority.

Now those priorities, while still extremely important, have changed radically in the context of expectations.

It is something that team manager Eddie Harney is acutely aware of.

However he is confident that the potential and the ambition that exists within the Saul club will help eventually propel it to even greater heights.
With men of the calibre of Evans and Curran and Quayle acting as the motivational and technical generators, there is no talk of mere consolidation, of trying to hang on to senior status.

Getting to the top flight of football meant that Saul club had to climb the rungs of a difficult ladder over many years.

As far as Eddie Harney is concerned the attitude in the club is the right one, the positive one.

“We can keep on climbing further up the ladder, rung by rung. The tools in terms of talented players are certainly there to help us achieve that objective.”

The rapid growth of the Saul Parish over the past decade has seen a rich influx of fresh football talent that has helped expand the genetic playing pool.

It is something that the Saul club, always recognised as a unit of the Association that was prepared to extend the warmest of welcomes to newcomers, has been able to tap into in a very positive fashion.

The success of the senior team has filtered down in a very direct way to the youth set-up in the club.

At Tuesday night training sessions it is not unusual for us to have upwards on 80 youngsters turning up to take part in coaching sessions. It requires an investment in time and energy of senior club members to cope with the specialist coaching demands of the juvenile section.

But it means that the platform for future success has been laid and cemented by commitment.

That cornerstone of youth development is one of the main reasons why the Saul management is convinced that they can continue to build on the success of the past few years.

Now in his sixth season as boss of the senior side, Eddie has seen the evolution of younger players coming through the club’s superb underage structure act as the catalyst for a revolutionary change in attitude.

The horizons of ambition are no longer limited by a lack of numbers and by a mediocrity of talent.

“At the start of the season we had a clear plan drawn up. We wanted to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the club by getting through senior football status.

“We lost out in the promotional battle last season and it hurt. It did however make us all the more determined to go one better, to go for the dream and achieve it this time around.”

Nothing was left to chance. The prepartion was methodical and meticulous. It also underlined the fund of goodwill that does exist in the context of the Saul club as far as other parts of the GAA are concerned.

“We were give great assistance by Ardglass who allowed us to train on their pitch while ours was being re-seeded.

“But the support of Bryansford was a key factor. We approached them through their player Aidan Shields who farms some land near Saul.

“The response was magnificent. They allowed us to train for three consecutive weeks under their floodlights.

“Being able to take part in full match training conditions was a crucial element in our planning for the playoffs.

“Bryansford were our secret weapon and we can’t thank them enough,” said Eddie.

That extra training dimension meant that Saul was able to go into the promotion cauldron with players fully prepared for the battle.

Their young players were given an insight into being part of the senior football scene, their appetite to stay there sharpened by the Ford floodlight experience.

The Saul management is convinced that their players benefited from that that extra injection of confidence as Eddie Harney stressed.

“Certainly the most pleasing aspect of our promotion victory was the fact that we had no less than seven players under the age of 21 on the team. Confidence is crucial for younger players.

“But there was an extra motivation for them because of the serious leg injury sustained by Paul Craig in the playoff game against Tullylish.

“Paul has been such an important performer for us over the last few seasons. He has made a superb contribution to the character and conviction of the team. You could sense in the changing room before the Clann Na Banna match that the rest of the lads wanted to win so much for Paul’s sake as for the promotion factor.

“Again it underlined the sense of unity, of oneness that exists with the playing group. A lot of rubbish is talked about managers and coaches. Of course they have a role to play.

“Once however that white line is crossed it is up to the players to answer the questions on the pitch. They have made huge sacrifices over the past season in particular.

“The demands on their time, and on their wives and girlfriends and families, are also absolutely intense and are sometimes forgotten about.

“Without the massive support of that other team on the sidelines we could never have achieved what we set out to do at the start of the season.”

The strength of the Saul set-up is that is does not revolve around one individual. It a team effort in the clearest sense of the word.

In the heartland of Patrick, the football gospel according to Saul in the coming seasons will continue to be preached around the three elements of unity, discipline and commitment.

It has provided a coveted passport to Promised Land of senior football after three-quarters of a century.

Promotion however is only the platform.

For by building on that platform the Saul pilgrimage promises to attract more converts to its positive philosophy in the years ahead.

By doing so it will continue to reflect the real strength of the GAA.