All-Ireland Under-21 Football Championship Semi-finals/ Armagh 1-19; Cork 2-10: Just as Armagh's golden generation begin to fade the county goes and produces another quality crop of players. Yesterday in Galway they advanced to the under-21 All-Ireland final with a highly-skilled demolition of Cork.
It was an all-too-familiar stuff really as the Munster champions, who had accounted for Kerry, failed to live with the high tempo and physicality of the Ulster men. Despite a lapse before half-time, Armagh were superior in all quarters as Joe Kernan's sons Aaron and Stephen and midfield pairing Gareth Swift and Malachy Mackin remorselessly drove them forward.
Their were plenty of other contributors - Michael McNamee, Gregory Loughran and Ronan Austin bagged plenty of scores - but most attacks emanated from the hands of Swift and Aaron Kernan at wing back. However, the second-half performance of the younger Kernan at centre-forward took the man-of-the-match kudos. He covered every blade of grass available and, before tiring near the finish, last year's minor star even managed to slot a 45.
It was by no means the best point of the afternoon. That honour will be the subject of much debate. It could easily go to McNamee's long-range effort after just 13 seconds. This was followed up quickly by a chance goal for the corner forward as his attempted point dropped into the top corner of Kevin Murphy's net.
Peadar Toal, Brian Mallon and Austin also got in on the scoring act to leave Cork on their knees after 10 minutes.
Austin got his second point from a near-impossible angle as the contest seemed set to descend into a farcical scenario Cork football cannot afford right now.
Armagh did show their mortal side coming up to the break with a couple of wides as Kevin O'Sullivan's free-taking reduced the deficit.
Cork finally got a break when Tadhg Twomey's shot took a deflection off Finian Moriarty to wrong-foot Armagh's excellent goalkeeper Paul Wilson. Kevin O'Sullivan added his fourth point from frees to, remarkably, leave just a single score in it at the interval. It got worse for Armagh as McNamee had to retire with a damaged shoulder.
"We had a 10-12 minute period coming up to half-time when we sort of lost our shape," said Armagh manager Peter Rafferty. "We lost the idea of what we were trying to do. But once we got the lads in and got them settled down, we decided we were going to go back out and do what we had started by doing.
"There was never going to be a situation where we were going to try and contain the situation to get to the All-Ireland final. We still had to come back out and win it."
The players' reaction was immediate. They raised their game with five unanswered points after the restart, the pick being another freakish effort from Austin, practically in touch and 10 metres from the goal line.
There is also plenty of talent on Rafferty's bench as McNamee's replacement, Peter Stevenson, hit two crackers of points when introduced.
Cork went in search of a goal but when they finally breached the typically disciplined Armagh rearguard Wilson was on hand to make two point-blank saves from Cian O'Riordan and O'Sullivan. Andrew Mallon also made an astonishing block on Alan O'Connor inches from goal.
Cork did avoid complete embarrassment but Rafferty's charges seemed able to pull away at will. The magic never waned as Toal, a third choice free-taker, fired a sideline between the posts before Barry Toner, the fourth choice, added another free to stretch the deficit to nine.
Respectability came in the shape of a converted O'Sullivan penalty in injury-time, after he was pulled down, it mattered little as Armagh had been in cruise control for much of the final quarter.
What was truly admirable about their performance is Armagh had not played a competitive match since April, while Cork beat Kerry two weeks ago. After this display, no one can realistically use that excuse again.
"Obviously it was well documented the situation around what it was going to be like having not played a game for 15 weeks but on that performance I'd like the final to be in 15 weeks," said Rafferty.
ARMAGH: P Wilson; G Smyth, F Moriarty, A Mallon (0-1); A Kernan, C McKeever, B McDonald; M Mackin, G Swift (0-1); G Loughran (0-3), S Kernan (0-2, free, 45), P Toal (0-3, one free, one sideline ball); M McNamee (1-2), R Austin (0-3), B Mallon (0-1). Subs: P Stevenson (0-2) for M McNamee (30 mins), B Toner (0-1, free) for S Kernan (50), P Duffy for B McDonald (54), R Henderson for G Loughran (60).
CORK: K Murphy; M Prout, D O'Donovan, B Crowley; N O'Riordan, P Nealon, E O'Connor; S O'Sullivan, D Coughlan; C O'Riordan (0-1), P Kelly (0-2), J Hayes (0-1); R Long (0-1), T Twomey (1-1), K O'Sullivan (1-4, four frees). Subs: A O'Connor for D Coughlin (20 mins), K Murphy for S O'Sullivan (37), D Burns for R Long (47), R Hoare for P Kelly (53).
Referee: P Fox (Westmeath).
