There was something very fitting about Rian O’Neill emerging from under the crossbar at the Canal End seconds before David Gough blew for full time. Armagh football pedigrees don’t come more purebred. McConville. Crossmaglen.
Besides that though, nobody has typified Kieran McGeeney’s Armagh model more than the fair haired forward. Remember the piece which appeared in this spot last year entitled Armagh – saving Gaelic football one long ball at a time? The foundation of that piece was based on how O’Neill was conductor-in-chief to the Orchard County direct football orchestra.
Think back to an Ulster Final a couple of years back, Rian goes to midfield for the throw in at the start of extra time, wins it, sends a long range missile straight into Ruairi Grugan, and seconds later he leaves Brendan McCole on his backside and fills the Donegal net.
That doesn’t take acount of the amount of long range points the versatile attacker essayed, both that day and in the interim. Including one clutch score during their most recent outing – I honestly can’t remember whether it was during normal time or extra time – which was like a carbon copy of that hit by Adam English for Limerick in the hurling the previous week.
By that stage Kerry resembled ledden-legged zombies, more heavy ground, low grade handicappers than Gold Cup contenders. Whilst in one sense it could be said Jack O’Connor’s side had been rather impressive in the first half, at the end of which they led by 0-10 to 0-06, it was in fact just another case of papering over the cracks of reality.
Yes, points from Sean O’Shea, Paidi Clifford and Dylan Geaney, along with a fortuitous Paul Murphy goal did restore their four point cushion at one stage. Two undeniable truths were eventually their undoing though.
One, whenever David Clifford has an off day – or is exceptionally well marked, depending on your perspective – the extent to which his county relies on him to merely stay afloat is glarlingly exposed. And two, when Armagh, inspired by substitutes Jarly Og Burns and ‘Soupy’ Campbell, began the second half as if steered by Max Verstappen.
Every team needs their unsung heroes however. To a certain extent, Jarly Og and ‘Soupy’ are exactly that, but on this occasion, they were outshone by somebody more unlikely than the possibility of Joe Brolly getting a Christmas card from Mickey Harte.
Step forward Barry McCambridge. At this point I will openly admit to, until very recently, never having heard of the man. However, like Mick Fitzsimons in last year’s All Ireland Final, he took on the most thankless job in Gaelic football – marking David Clifford – and by the end of the day made the Fossa phenom look normal at best.
Not only that though, when he saw the great man was running on fumes, he took it as licence to venture upfield and – also copying something produced in the hurling last weekend – after Shane Ryan had scattily dealt with a high ball in, producing a forehand as cultured as had Eoin Cody the previous weekend for Kilkenny.
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Prior to the commencement of the second All Ireland semi final on Sunday evening, RTE’s Damien Lawlor asked former Donegal footballer Brendan Devenney could he put a handle on why Jim McGuinness has such a transformative effect on players he manages.
“No, I can’t, but what I can tell you is that if he asked them to climb to the roof of that (Cusack) stand, they’d do it in a heartbeat, no questions asked”.
How better to describe the Tir Chonaill men’s transformation from the ramshackle, slovenly lot of last season, to what became hitherto an unstoppable force of nature? After all, with the exception of Mark Curran and Ciaran Moore, they are basically the same battalion floundered with by Declan Bonner, Paddy Carr and Aidan O’Rourke before the resurrection of he who resembles Our Lord.
Now, throughout the season currently hurtling to a close shamefully early, mention has often been made that, in reality, neither Armagh or Donegal should belonged in Div. 2 of the Allianz NFL. Proving as such by absolutely sailing through the early season competition. As an aside, if one was searching for miniscule crumbs of comfort from a very underwhelming season for Meath at senior level, it could be said that our two worst defeats of the year – on two sojourns to Ulster, against Armagh and Donegal respectively, don’t look half as bad now with the benefit of context.
I’ve always been a fan of how Armagh play their football. Going back to the days of Big Joe (Kernan) and the long, diagonal ball, which itself was an extension of the Crossmaglen philosophy. With its own foundation stones having germinated from the time one C. O’Rourke was brought in in an advisory capacity before the Rangers won their first All Ireland Club SFC in the mid ’90s.
From the county team’s perspective, the methodology was very much cut and paste the same only the ‘pivot’ in orange and white was Ronan Clarke. He being fed by the likes of the McEntee twins, Paul McGrane and Oisin McConville while Stephen McDonnell and Diarmaid Marsden fed off Clarke’s industry to construct the scores which eventually sent Sam to meet Brian Boru.
Why exactly Jim McGuinness – like Mickey Harte before him – went so obsessively defensive has, I think, never been really explained. As in, what did they deem to be so wrong with the game that they had to go and fundamentally the way in which the game is played. That is to say, to almost remove kicking from the menu altogether, propagate the proliferation of coma inducing triangulated hand passing and ghastly honey trap defencive setups.
I say ghastly in reference to the latter because, whereas Sean Boylan had been using defencive overloads and swarm tactics at least two decades prior to the other pair, the inclination was, though, that with our man emphasis was on effecting turnovers and getting the ball up the field as quickly as possible, with the more modern incarnation, intense focus seemed to be on choking the life out of the opposition and then advancement via pedantic, meandering often pedantic slaloming in a variety of different directions.
It’s a long road that has no turn however and, belatedly in my view, the populous began to cop on that Dublin had long twigged a mishmash of short-ish passing, long foot passing and kicking scores from out the field as a means of stifling negative philosophies and, to some extent claim the game back from the edge of a dangerous precipice.
Thus, it could be said ‘Jimmy Ball’ has evolved. More than that, it was pivotal in deciding the eventual identity of those destined for the All Ireland SFC Final. The only cruel irony, of course, being that the architect of the revolution – or maybe that should be evolution – ended up missing out on the showpiece day after being basically outdone at their own prototype.
Firstly because Johnny McGrath, Sean Fitzgerald, Dylan McHugh and Liam Silke shutting down the likes of Ciaran Thompson, Paddy McBrearty and Aaron Doherty, though against that, the imperious efforts of Ciaran Moore, Ryan McHugh, Michael Langan and Oisin Gallen left matters on a knife edge until Galway effected several turnovers by bunching and breaking, allowlng half back hotshots McHugh and Silke to essay the shots which sent the Tribesmen to the final summer Sunday.
Just as Declan Meehan and Sean Og De Paor had for a previous generation. Armagh, you have been warned.
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