Kieran McGeeney wasn’t taking the bait. As Armagh-Tyrone build-ups go, the preamble to Sunday’s Ulster championship preliminary-round clash was guilty of making it sound like a shoving match between a rhino and a squirrel.
For McGeeney, the challenge was not allowing the outside noise to seep under the door of the Armagh dressingroom.
“It’s very difficult. You know, shite sells so it’s not really going to change,” said the Armagh manager.
“I’m not being facetious, you’re not going to get much of a sales pitch out of ‘it’s going to be an even game, two well-matched teams’. If you look at the history, there’s always going to be nip and tuck.
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“People like headlines. That’s it. People like to listen to headlines. It’s human psychology. Bad news sells better than good news. Write it off and everybody will eat it up.”
If keeping that outside noise at bay was a challenge for Armagh, chances are Tyrone were using the barbs to fuel their fire.
However, on the prematch criticism, Tyrone manager Malachy O’Rourke said: “It’s just annoying for the group and the lads involved who are putting serious commitment in.
“That’s the way of the world and we just have to put up with it. It was up to us to try to answer that as best we could and in terms of the endeavour we couldn’t have asked for more.
“Within the camp we certainly knew the boys were training hard and that there was a good spirit among them.
“We knew with the performances during the year, we weren’t happy with them but there were different factors playing in to that. We were determined to come here today and put on a big performance because we knew we would have to.
“There’s no harder place to go to in championship football than the Athletic Grounds so we are pleased with the battling to the end.
“We showed great resilience to battle back each time and just glad that we showed a lot of people outside who were critical of a lot of things in the camp that there is spirit and a bit of quality there as well.”
The concern leaving the match for Tyrone will revolve around the two first-half injuries to forward Darragh Canavan (hip flexor) and captain Brian Kennedy (knee ligament).
O’Rourke is uncertain of how long they might be sidelined.
“We couldn’t fault the effort of the boys from first whistle to last, and especially when we lost our captain and our vice-captain so early on in the game.
“It could have been a day to fold up the tents and forget about it. In fairness to the boys, they battled for each other right the way through, showed a great hunger, showed the defensive work, so we did a lot of things right. Disappointed but overall a lot of pride.”
Relief will be the main emotion in the Armagh dressingroom, but the Orchard County will also advance to an Ulster quarter-final against Fermanagh knowing they have the character to win ugly when required.
Throughout the league they had finished on the wrong end of scorelines after delivering decent performances. So getting the result here was all that really mattered.
“I’m all for playing shite and winning,” said McGeeney.
“When you talk about players like Mattie Donnelly, Michael McKernan, [Conn] Kilpatrick, [Niall] Morgan, [Eoin] McElholm, you’re not on about average players – you’re on about very good players.
“I have to hand it [to our players] again, it’s not very easy when things are going against you and you go a man down.”
McGeeney wouldn’t be drawn on Darragh McMullen’s two yellow cards but does feel his side will need to raise their performance for the clash with Fermanagh in a fortnight.
“It’s not our finest day but credit has to be given to Tyrone too, they came here, written off and fought and fought.”
