Kieran McGeeney refuses to excuse grim afternoon for Armagh

Kieran McGeeney smiled when was asked if he still felt that Kerry and Dublin were a more physical proposition than Donegal.

In the weeks leading up to this Ulster quarter-final, the remark generated plenty of debate.

Watching Donegal boss his team for an hour did nothing to change his opinion and on a grim day for Armagh, he was forced to explain the context of his remark.

“There are people out there who seem to translate what I seem to say such was the difference in the headlines.

“Yeah, they [Kerry and Dublin] are more physical teams, they hit hard and they always have and they always will, I think. But that is a personal opinion. It might not count for much but I think there was somebody there translating what I was saying the last time . . . but that is my own personal opinion and it has not changed.

“There were no real physical hits out there today. Donegal are just good at those one-twos through the 65s, getting support runners off the shoulder, stretching you out. They open up the game and they are very good at it.”

It was a fair assessment. Donegal just subdued Armagh rather than bludgeon them and moved the ball so quickly that the home team were left chasing shadows.

It went wrong early for Armagh and it stayed wrong and everything that McGeeney had worked on night after night was rendered redundant. He refused the consolation of it just being one of those days.

Sloppy

“I don’t know if it was that nothing went our way or we just didn’t do what we were supposed to do. We were very sloppy, our fist passing. You expect a team to score seven or eight points against you in a half but you have to score as well.

“We kept giving the ball away on the 50 without any pressure. Just sloppy fist passing into crowds, no support runs and then our defensive structure: we let Donegal’s rotation system pull us out. We played better with it in the second half but by that stage the damage was done.”

And in a weird way, there was pressure on Armagh here. ‘Getting’ Donegal in the Athletics Grounds was regarded as a huge chance to take down the standard bearers of the Ulster theatre.

There was something of the old mood of expectancy about the town as the crowd built up at noon time.

“You probably get a bit excited and the way Donegal play, they are very good,” McGeeney said.

“They poke and they probe and they try to pull you outside your 65 and then they come at you in ones and twos and change the pace inside it. We were just stupid enough to let it happen.

Goal chances

“It is just one of those things that we set up better with in the second half but they had a few goal chances then as well. We had the same, we had 25 shots, they had 25 shots. The difference is they were taking theirs and we weren’t taking ours.”

It has been an exceptional championship for Rory Gallagher so far, whose teams have dealt with Tyrone and now Armagh with absolute efficiency. One of the most telling statistics of the day was that they didn't concede a free within shooting range for 47 minutes.

“We were probably disappointed with the Tyrone game a wee bit that we gave away a number of scoreable frees,” Gallagher said.

“Probably as well, it’s crazy, but the weather conditions make a huge part of it too, players were slipping and sliding the last day. There were perfect conditions here for players to execute the tackle and that helped a lot as well.

“You are always afraid before every game, but the signs were always promising at training and you can only go by that. The hunger is there night after night and we are very pleased with that.”