Ferguson hoping to emulate his uncle

Just a month shy of 29 years since his uncle Terry Ferguson climbed the steps to raise the Keegan Cup for Gaeil Colmcille Liam Ferguson is dreaming of emulating that feat when he leads his side into SFC final battle against Ratoath next Sunday.

So often, in the last five years in particular, Gaeil Colmcille have fallen at the penultimate hurdle, but following their semi-final victory over Na Fianna the Kells men are back in the final again and Liam Ferguson is hoping to follow in his uncle's footsteps.

"It is always a proud day to captain your club, so to do so in a county final and have the opportunity to do something that was last done by my uncle 29 years ago would be a source of immense pride," Ferguson told the Meath Chronicle.

"Hopefully we can get the job done now, but we are under no illusions about the difficulty of the task ahead. It is great for the whole town, after so much heartache in the last few years, getting to the final has been a huge boost.

"The town is hopping at the minute. The club are doing their part to get the buzz going, but we as a team have to focus on the final, keep our heads and let everyone else do the work behind the scenes.

"Hopefully, the town will be painted in Kells colours, we want the support of everyone. Unfortunately it doesn't look like we'll have too many at the game, but everyone in the town is buzzing for it."

So just why have Gaeil Colmcille fallen short in recent years?

Clearly a club littered with outstanding talent Ferguson is of the opinion that maybe they were just lacking in a little self-belief. He feels that Lar Wall has done a great job and he is confident the Laois native Na Fianna man is the one to get them over the line.

"I think maybe we had been lacking in a little bit of self-belief. We know we have good footballers, some of the best footballers in the county, especially in the forwards, but maybe we just lacked a bit of self-belief," suggested Ferguson.

"It is nothing major, but we have worked hard on getting one more thing right. We know on each of those occasions that we lost if we had done just one more thing right everything would have fallen into place.

"The hard work went in and the lads played well, but it was just one or two little things that didn't go our way and we probably could have worked a bit harder on those days as well.

"He (Lar Wall) is brilliant, his attention to detail is second to none. He has brought Kells football on in leaps and bounds. What he has done for adult football has helped the underage football and everything else about the club.

"There is a great sense of community in the town and everyone is buzzing, Lar has driven all that, we couldn't have asked for a better man.

"He has stuck by us. We didn't want anyone else, we knew he was the right man and we knew he can get the best out of us. We had to retain him for this year especially after the heartbreak of the last couple of years."

With this year's championship being run without interruption Ferguson believes Gaeil Colmcille have benefited from the quickfire nature of the competition.

"We knew if we lost a game this year we would be gone, so it has been knockout football all year," insisted the Gaeil Colmcille captain.

"There was a huge sense of relief after the win over Dunboyne in the group stages, especially after losing the quarter-final after extra-time to them two years, that really knocked us back.

"The relief of beating Na Fianna last week was huge. They had beaten us in the semi-final in 2015 so it was pure relief to beat them and get to that final at last.

"We have had a slow start to a few of our games this year, so we will have to sort that out. Against Dunboyne, and it was the same against Na Fianna, we had to put our shoulder to the wheel and we knew if we worked hard we would get our reward.

"Everyone loves playing games and this championship format has been great. We are getting good, high quality championship games every two weeks, we have to be at our best all the time.

"During lockdown everyone bought into the plan, we knew it was going to be a short, sharp season and we knew that if we worked hard enough and went for it then we would have a good chance.

"Every other year we have always won our first couple of games then the break of two or three months would come and we found it hard to get back going again. Other teams were only getting going then, whereas we were already after playing our best football."

So what of the challenge Gaeil Colmcille will face against Ratoath in the final? Ferguson speaks with regret when he talks about how his side left it behind them against Ratoath in last year's semi-final, but he admits they are a quality side.

"Ratoath are champions for a reason, they are a very good, young team. They've been there or thereabouts for the last few years, so we know it will be tough," he said.

"Last year we were five or six points up at one stage, but they stuck with us and took their chances. They were the better team last year, we fell off in the second-half, they worked a lot harder than us.

"They absolutely deserved to be champions last year, but this year it is all gearing up towards being a very good game," concluded the Gaeil Colmcille captain.