Kieran McGeeney kind of deserved this. For a decade and a half, he’s has come out to face the music after agonising defeats and not delegated the misery. In fact, he often appeared to reserve his appearances for post-defeat press conferences.
On Saturday evening after a breathless victory over football’s brand leaders, Kerry, he looks nearly as exhausted as if he had lost but retains something of the Kiplingesque demeanour.
“We don’t get to too many finals so it’s a great achievement. I was saying it was a game where there were loads of mistakes. Both teams missed goal chances, missed point chances. It was up and down, a lot more open than people were expecting but every game takes on a life of its own and that was just the life this one took on.”
It’s not a bad précis. Armagh were arguably lucky to survive an uninspired first half and when on the resumption, Tom O’Sullivan put wide a clear goal chance, well set up by Seán O’Shea, followed in short order by a goal, fisted in by Paul Murphy for a five-point lead, the Ulster challenge looked done.
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That they somehow hauled themselves back into the game and turned around the scoreboard, to lead towards the end of normal time was a stunning recovery. Yet they must have been nagged by the failure to finish off Kerry and haunted by their recent experiences of exiting two championships in each of two years by losing penalty shoot-outs.
“They showed great resilience,” said McGeeney. “We felt like we shouldn’t have been behind. It was a soft goal but they’d probably feel the same about the goal we got. A bounce and a fist in.
“Yeah, they have shown that over and over again and pushed every team to the limits. At different times, they just didn’t get over that line. As we were getting closer to extra-time, we were all going, ‘F**k, is it going to be penalties again?’ But the boys went after it, Ross, Turbo, they really went to win the game, which is something you have to be really proud of as well.”
The goal that served as this All-Ireland semi-final’s watershed came in the 55th minute, adroitly punched home by Barry McCambridge, who also put in a fine evening’s work marking David Clifford, after Rian O’Neill’s toppling high ball had been fumbled by Kerry goalkeeper Shane Ryan.
One point in it. 1-11 to 1-12.
The significance of the score in reversing the momentum of the contest was acknowledged by a deflated Jack O’Connor, whose team had come into the semi-finals as hot favourites to regain the Sam Maguire after two years.
“The goal we conceded was a killer in the sense that it got the Armagh crowd into it.
“I thought we quietened the crowd for large parts of the game and it just gave Armagh momentum and it is hard to break momentum. We did well to come back and equalise in normal time but we had a ferocious effort from our boys. It was bitterly disappointing; it was a game we had enough chances to win.
“They just got momentum. The goal gave them momentum and the crowd drove them on. They outnumbered us fairly substantially out there and I thought the crowd was a factor in the game. No question about it, it just lifted Armagh and we tried very hard but it was hard to arrest that momentum.”
Acknowledging that he had come from “a sombre dressing-room,” O’Connor added that he hoped to serve out the third year of his management’s appointed term, in 2025.
McGeeney concurred on the importance of the crowd: “Yeah, the orange and white was brilliant today, there’s no doubt it was an extra man.”
When asked had it been difficult for his coach Kieran Donaghy, who had soldiered long in his own county, Kerry’s colours and won All-Irelands, including two under O’Connor, he brought in some personal experiences.
“There’s no doubt Kieran Donaghy will go back to Kerry in his day and he’ll do a fantastic job there whenever he is asked. Hopefully he has learned a bit. We have definitely learned a lot from him. It was tough in one way but he’s a competitor. That’s what makes him so great. It’s in that Kerry blood. I have seen that with my own wife. You don’t want to cross them!”
Armagh now prepare for a first All-Ireland final in 21 years, when McGeeney was captain. He declined to express anxiety as the prospect of the county going nuts for the next fortnight. “I can’t control the outside. But you can control the training.
“They have been warned over the years about the noise – and you want your county to have that. You don’t want the fans ... you wouldn’t be the most popular man in Armagh if you went and told them they weren’t to have a drink tonight.
“So, you let that go.
“It’s a wee bit easier now, to be honest. If you look at the two-week gap, it used to be four and five. Tomorrow morning you are in recovery. A lot of sore bodies in there, they know they will have to be back on the pitch by Tuesday because they know they are playing.
“They will be in six sessions, max, to be able to do something.”
It promises to be the cheeriest two weeks of McGeeney’s long tenure.
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