THE Kilcoo train may have reached its destination in late 2019, but the wheels kept turning last season as they continued to find the clues in their trophy treasure hunt.

Two years ago Mickey Moran’s side finally ended their wait for the Ulster title with a final victory over Naomh Conaill, and the Magpies would fly onto Croke Park as they lost to Corofin in the All-Ireland final a few months later.

That provincial crown had eluded them for years, their hopes being narrowly dashed time and time again before they eventually triumphed against the Donegal champions.

“Their hunger won’t be the same now.” “You’d expect the older boys to quit now.” “Their season went on too long, they’ll feel that this year.”

The reasons for why Kilcoo would be vulnerable were all rolled out, but when the Frank O’Hare Cup was handed over last September it was joint-captains Conor Laverty and Aidan Branagan who were lifting it – those two veterans certainly weren’t ready to hang up the boots.

The only difference with the trophy presentation was that it was on a stage on the Páirc Esler pitch rather than in the stand due to Covid-19 safety measures, but when all was said and done Kilcoo were champions for the ninth time since 2009.

Conleith Gilligan had been Moran’s right-hand man ahead of the 2019 season, and they had helped the club achieve its main goal of an Ulster title.

The Derry man said that they weren’t going to ride off into the sunset after that provincial triumph, and staying on board last term was an easy decision with the club’s ambitions now possibly moving towards an All-Ireland crown in the future having come so close last time out.

And, Gilligan said, that loss to Corofin was still playing on the mind, even if a worldwide pandemic meant that they would not get the chance to rectify it.

“It wasn’t a difficult decision to stay on at all,” said the Ballinderry native.

“Obviously we had lost the All-Ireland Club final. All seasons, well outside of Corofin anyway, end in failure really.

“Unless you win the ultimate of all competitions, for any team it ends for failure. You’re looking for improvement from that and there had been improvement as the competition went on.

“The Corofin game was just a step too far at that point but up until that point the team had made strides forward and had become better.”

Any suggestion that the Kilcoo hunger had been sated was firmly rejected by half-forward Paul Devlin.

The county man is in a unique group in Kilcoo. Along with Conor Laverty and Aidan Branagan, he has now started all nine county final wins since the club bridged a 72-year wait for championship honours back in 2009.

That number was, of course, eight before the 2020 campaign started, but he said the desire was as strong as ever within the group.

“I think the standard of Down football is getting better and you’re coming up against five or six serious teams,” said Devlin.

“Whenever we got that Ulster title and got on to the All-Ireland and losing after extra-time, it takes a few months to get over it and lockdown gave us time to reflect on it.

“Because you had that taste of being so close to an All-Ireland, boys were saying ‘Jesus, we’re not that far away at all here.’

“That success in Ulster spurred us on, we wanted more. I think rather than saying ‘job done’, that run actually put it into players’ minds just how good our squad was and how well we could go if we went at it even harder.

“I think the hunger is always instilled by the desire to get something you never had before, so coming so close to the All-Ireland has sparked it again. We were hungrier than we ever were really going into last season.

“The All-Ireland season, in the Down Championship people were saying we weren’t blowing teams out of the water. I thought this season we actually played a lot, lot better in the Down Championship.

“It’s just a pity that it ended at the county final stage because I thought we were hitting a good bit of form and in hindsight you’re thinking about what would have happened had there been an Ulster Championship.

“We’ve been lucky too that we haven’t really been hit with many retirements. I know Sean O’Hanlon has stepped away, he has been a serious servant to Kilcoo, but I think that might be it.”

While the lockdown did mean that the team got a longer break than expected from January’s All-Ireland final loss to Corofin, Devlin felt that it wasn’t totally advantageous to the panel.

Under Jim McCorry, the club adopted a policy of trying to bring three new players through every season, something subsequent managers Paul McIver and Mickey Moran tried to do.

A lack of a proper league season meant that the plan had to be put on hold before the start of the club championship.

“The break gave us time to reflect and also time to rest,” said Devlin.

“On the flipside, it’s likely during that time that Mickey would have started using the depth in his squad. Maybe he could have found something different that he could have used.

“I feel we are a talented squad, some of the toughest matches I’ve played in recent years have been our in-house games. The B team often beats the A team.

“That lockdown took away the chance of a player making a breakthrough and given that the season was week-on-week when it did restart, it was very hard for someone to force someone else out.

“So the break was good for the lads who had a lot of miles on the clock, but it was probably a bad thing for some of those younger boys who were eyeing up a place on the team.”

Even without testing the squad depth as much as planned, Kilcoo looked very sharp in their first championship encounter with the TG4 cameras present to capture their 1-13 to 0-8 win over Mayobridge.

The sides had been level at the break, but Moran’s side pushed on in the third quarter with Jerome Johnston’s stunning long-range goal raising a green flag in the final moments.

“Any time you go into a game against someone like Mayobridge you expect the kitchen sink to be thrown at you and, to be fair, I thought Mayobridge were well in the game,” Devlin said.

“The scoreline probably didn’t reflect their performance but when you have the experience of playing in big games you can manage the game a lot better. You’re experienced enough to know when to go, when not to go.

“Mayobridge are a young side on the start of their journey so our experience carried us through. We were that bit more efficient in front of goals too. We were more efficient all year, really.”

The side were brought back down to earth in round 2A though as they lost a controversial game to Warrenpoint, 0-10 to 0-9.

The holders felt that there was a time-keeping issue in the game and that they were denied a chance to force an equaliser, but Devlin was fairly measured when asked to sum up the encounter.

“I actually thought it was a brilliant game of football, and certainly for a neutral it would have been a brilliant game of football. I did pick up an injury in it though.

“I thought we had gone through the motions a bit and we needed something to really spark us into life in the aftermath.

“Sometimes when you get beat you sulk but we were using the motivation of certain things that happened in the game to give us that kick up the hole that we needed.

“From that, we seemed to turn a corner because the form seemed to turn completely.”

That was evident in the second half of their next game against Burren. The first period had been fairly even with Paddy O’Rourke’s youngsters showing immense heart, but the holders just effortlessly moved through the gears in the second half of the match against the team that has given them the most bother in recent years.

Next to feel the brunt of Kilcoo’s rise in temperature was Rostrevor, although Pete McGrath’s side did post a very respectable 2-11 tally.

The Magpie attack was purring though as they created a series of early goal chances. Devlin stuck one away from the penalty spot and although they messed up a number of great opportunities, their 2-17 score was more than enough to reach the last four.

“I know there is a perception that we are very defensive-minded, but this was another example of our forward line showing pace and quality,” Devlin said.

“It was like that all season and whenever you have six scoring forwards up front it’s very hard to handle that. Not too many teams have six man-markers.

“Whenever someone is being well marshalled or having an off day we seem to have someone else who can stand up to the plate.”

That ensured a semi-final meeting with Warrenpoint, the side that had edged them earlier in the tournament.

With Ballyholland and Carryduff meeting in the other semi-final there was no doubting that many people saw this as the county final in all but name.

Maybe if the ‘Point had repeated the trick that view may have faltered, but as it was, the most highly-anticipated club match in Down this year turned into a damp squib as Kilcoo eased to a 1-18 to 2-6 win.

“If you were talking to anyone after the one-point defeat to Warrenpoint, the next draw that was made we were looking to draw them.

“It was more for the chance to redeem yourself; it’s not often you get the chance to redeem yourself within a matter of weeks.

“We were really, really prepared for that game – the management team had us sharpened up to perform. I thought it was one of our best performances in recent years from one to 15 and from the boys who came on.

“Warrenpoint were trying to stay in the game but there was a period where we just absolutely blitzed them and I didn’t think they had any way back.

“Obviously, our game management and control stood to us again from there.”

Carryduff saw off Ballyholland in a semi-final thriller to reach the decider for the first time in their history.

This took David and Goliath to a whole new level but the underdogs gave a good account of themselves, and if they hadn’t butchered an excellent goal chance late in the first half then it may have been a more difficult day’s work for Kilcoo.

As it was, a few scoring bursts saw them comfortably home 0-16 to 0-9 and the Down Senior Championship was headed to the club for the 18th time.

“It wasn’t actually until the first water-break when we settled, we were pulled in and we assessed what we were doing,” said Devlin, who was named Man of the Match.

“Carryduff were more dominant around the middle and they were targeting us the right way and keeping with us.

“Until then it was even enough but between the water-break and the interval we got some momentum.

“We got into our groove from there and Carryduff maybe struggled a bit with the rise in tempo. They did miss a few opportunities though and, again, our experience was vital.”

Black and white were the colours one again, the Magpies soared over Down football.

For team coach Gilligan, even in a Covid-dominated championship, he took great joy from watching the team move forward, and he felt that they were even possibly stronger than they had been on their run to the All-Ireland final the season before.

“Last season was obviously a very strange one, a very short one with everything condensed into six or seven weeks.

“Even within that the team had made small improvements on the season before.

“We had some players come through and we had Darragh (O’Hanlon) and Paul Greenan and Ceilum Doherty back from injury.”

Another chapter in the glorious history of the club. This book isn’t finished yet though.