Muineachán V Ard Mhaca USFC

[Main Street]

Another illiterate mucksavage craves attention

[BerfArmagh]

i actually think the fact this match in casement will make it an open enough affair

[mackers]

McDonnell can get his "revenge" by scoring 6 or 7 points from play.

Exactly............nobody is suggesting that Stevie batters the head off Mone.........excellent article on Stevie in last week's Sunday Tribune and although he doesn't mention Dessie Mone by name we all know who he's talking about.

[AFS]

McDonnell can get his "revenge" by scoring 6 or 7 points from play.

Exactly............nobody is suggesting that Stevie batters the head off Mone.........excellent article on Stevie in last week's Sunday Tribune and although he doesn't mention Dessie Mone by name we all know who he's talking about.

New Wave

The desire is back – Stevie McDonnell tells Ewan MacKenna about recapturing it, how he's not finished with Croke Park yet, and shoving it down people's throats

First appointment of the day. You. Stevie McDonnell has had plenty of microphones stuck in front of him in the lead-up to this championship and today you're not even the only Sunday journalist scribbled into his diary. So, feeling part of a slightly polygamous relationship, you've come to a Dundalk business park good and early, wondering why he's been speaking to anyone who'll listen of late. But there's a problem. Faced with a wall of offices you're unsure exactly where to find him. You call, he comes to a window, tells you to look up and to the left then the other left. Finally you are met with an excitable wave and a beaming smile shining down from the third floor.

Through the doors and up the stairs, the 30-year-old is running around like a child who's washed down too many Skittles with too much coke. He's brilliantly hyper. Wants to know if you'd like a coffee, some sugar, more sugar, another coffee, biscuits, even whipping out a packet of buns. You turn down the majority of the buffet and when you finally get him into a chair he can't sit still. You're about to ask if he's alright when suddenly it all makes sense. All the quotes, all the giddiness, all the charm and all the menace and scores in this year's league? Eureka. Stevie McDonnell has got his mojo back. When Kieran McGeeney said he'd never seen a player to relish big games more, this is the character he was referring to.

If I'd come here a year ago though, you ask, would I have even gotten a glass of water?

"Possibly not," he laughs. "I'd have sat here trying to convince you everything was alright with me and with Armagh. I'd have said it in the hope of convincing myself that I still had what it took, that I wasn't just a waster on that panel. But you'd have seen right through it."

But if that's what you're doing now, it's impossible to see through.

"That's because I'm not," he enthuses. "Let me put it to you this way. Last year I played an awful lot of golf and pretended I was giving football my all. Last Saturday I had my first game of golf in seven months. I used to say my best games were in the league of 2005. Well, this league there have been patches of that form. I've been looking forward to this Derry match for ages knowing I'll be in great shape. Now I can't wait."

It's a feeling he thought was lost and gone forever. During last year's Ulster opener against Tyrone he could feel his enthusiasm dripping away with each bead of sweat as he realised both he and his new teammates didn't really believe they could win. That wasn't the way it used to be when he, McGrane, Geezer, McConville and the twins were convinced they could move mountains each Sunday. It got worse though. The war against Monaghan took its toll. As the game descended into farce he could take no more, lashed out and was sent off. In extra-time he tried to encourage those left on the battlefield but thought better, sat down and wondered why they'd listen to someone like him anyway.

"That was the lowest moment. But as a corner-forward I am always prepared to take a punch in the face or a dig in the ribs. However, I won't take what went on [that day]. Believe it or not Derry were playing them the following Saturday. The day after I met Fergal Doherty on the way back from the Leinster final and without me saying a thing he told me the same thing had happened [in their game].

"But on my part it maybe was a little frustration because the hunger wasn't there. I got pissed off and, with the experience I had, I should have been able to hold myself back. How did I feel walking off? I felt like shit. I knew straight away I'd let everyone down. I thought it was the end of me and the end of an era for Armagh. It's something that still hurts me, thinking I actually took the bait from someone like that. But if you look at the way the GAA is going, it's the forwards getting sent off but do you believe forwards go out to intimidate defenders?"

After that game he sat in the dressing room and started missing the players he'd grown up with. They would have known what to say to him and how to win out in a game like that. He remembered how he was away working in England when Paul McGrane said he could take no more of the intercounty stuff and how he found out through a text later that evening that there was none of the old brigade left but him. Last man standing. But barely.

"It was at times like after that Monaghan game that I'd wish I was still playing with all those great men. We'd meet up once a year and think back to the great matches and tough training and at least I can say every one of us is still good friends and always will be. I don't know how I would have got through life without them because they've all become some of my best friends. They've given me memories of a lifetime. But I guess I realised this year I didn't want just memories. I realised it was time to make myself a better player."

He used to do anything and everything to make himself a better player. He may have hit 9-13 in eight games leading up to the 2002 championship but, before it, Cathal O'Rourke called him over about his point-taking. McDonnell disagreed but gave in, stayed behind training session after training session as O'Rourke dropped balls in front of him and taught him to kick around the corner. That September he watched Oisín McConville goal but instead popped up for the winner. It was exactly the sort of point he'd practiced and it made every nerve and sinew tingle.

It's a feeling he crucially rediscovered in the same stadium last year. After failing to win a single championship game for the second time in three years he fronted up to his true feelings and realised he was living out his days like an ordinary schnook. He hadn't burnt out, he was just fading away. Then the strangest thing happened. After downing more than a few beers with his wife at the U2 concert in Croke Park in July he had a moment of clarity. He took a look around the stadium and asked if he was really finished with the place. The voices kept saying "No way. No way".

But that was only part of the comeback of one of the great corner-forwards. He wasn't going to continue to just fill space with his reputation and needed someone to remind him of how good he was. He met Paul Grimley one day and the two went for a coffee. He was blunt. Told Grimley the other players wanted him, he needed him and as they shook hands at the end he warned if Grimley didn't take the manager's job then his own career was over. A couple of weeks later his phone went off. The message read: 'Grimley's gone to Monaghan'.

"I thought that was it again. Who else could make me believe in myself? I hung around though and the players were asked for an opinion on the next manager. We put down John Rafferty, Donal Murtagh, Brian McAlindan and Peter Rafferty. But in case they weren't interested we put in three non-Armagh men. Sean Boylan, Paddy O'Rourke and Colm Coyle. Sean would have been my first choice but he was still with the international rules team. So I talked about Paddy to the lads. I'd worked with him and heard nothing but good things.

"When he got the job we all heard the negative comments about this Down man who wanted to put the final nail in Armagh's coffin a few years ago. But we had to give him a chance. And when we met in the Armagh City Hotel I knew I was coming back. He said he was 100 per cent committed to making Armagh a better team. The other thing I liked hearing was we'd be going out and expressing ourselves. A breath of fresh air."

The make-up of the backroom team also helped. A few years ago during an international rules trip, McDonnell was down the back of a bus in Perth having a chinwag with Benny Coulter and some of the Kerry and Tyrone lads. Mike McGurn came up in conversation and they all wondered what a county team would be like if the physical trainer had some real time with them. Now McDonnell knows. Despite his years, and despite just two 45-minute sessions a week, he's never felt in better shape. "The fun is back and we are a closer team than we have been in a long time. Things are starting to remind me of the old days."

Good old days like 2005 when McDonnell called Ryan McMenamin over for a drink at the All Stars with one question to ask. He was wondering why the Tyrone man hadn't given him hell in that year's semi. He was expecting a storm of abuse. Instead he got peace and quiet. McMenamin had a very good reason though. "Most players can give it but they can't take it. You can. It would have been a waste of time with you."

Turns out he'd taken it all through his career and not flinched once. In the 2007 league against Louth he'd taken ferocious abuse. Not from their fans but from his own. Then, late in the game, he picked up a McGrane pass and won the game. "My family were in the crowd and I guess people at games need to remember that. My family were unhappy and said that the Armagh fans had been spoiled and forgotten so quickly. I've scored many a goal but that one was one of the best. It not only shut up the Louth supporters but it shut up our own."

A year later he was again hearing abuse. The game was the Ulster final and McDonnell spent that Sunday listening to Fermanagh goalkeeper Ronan Gallagher filling his ears. He stayed quiet and his six points off Shane Goan earned a replay and Man of the Match. A week later when he goaled late on to secure the title, he let rip at Gallagher, screaming about his sisters who he'd seen pictured in a newspaper between games.

"I don't regret anything I said to him. You come up against certain people and a lot are shooting their mouth off but he never stopped. Funny that, because he's never proven himself as a player. In my opinion anyway. I think after the first game he realised it did no good then and his own teammates told him to shut the hell up. When I got the goal, that was my time to show that I was taking none of his shit. I enjoy scoring goals but scoring goals on keepers like Ronan Gallagher makes it even better. Like what has he ever done? Remind me?"

He's getting excited by the thought of days like those and he's getting excited by the thought of days like today as well. He doesn't hold back because he's Stevie McDonnell again and he doesn't need to. On the wall of his office a poster reads, "Vision. The best way to see the future is to create it". A year ago they were just hollow words. Today they could be his motto.

emackenna@tribune.ie

May 16, 2010

[mackers]

Great article, in fairness to Stevie he wasn't on his own in letting himself down that evening. It's up there with the Wexford match in 08 as the low point in following Armagh in the post 99 era.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't losing to Monaghan, a team that I have a lot of respect for, it was the absolute rubbish that we played that evening. It has to be a huge motivation for this Armagh team going to Casement Park, the only Armagh player to come out of Clones that night having done himself justice was Brendan Donaghy, the rest have a chance of redemption, no more so than Stevie.

He doesn't hold back on Ronan Gallagher either.

[Armaghgeddon]

Brilliant Article. Stevie Mc is back!!   

[The Iceman]

Stevie is definitely in great form and long may it last.  I definitely fancy Armagh against Monaghan and would love to see a more free flowing, attacking football.
I would love to know the whole story on the Gallagher incident as Gallagher himself really plays it down.

I hope Armagh can at least make it to the Ulster Final, I will home and hoping to go to Croker and see my first Armagh match since 27th May 2007!!!!

[Main Street]

I suppose the fact that Dessie was much the better player on the day, didn't help Stevie's mood.
His sending off didn't go any damage to Armagh in the game.

The misses that day by both teams were shocking. Certainly it was the worst footballing performance by Monaghan in recent times, Armagh were just   more worse than the worst Monaghan could manage.

[naka]

really confident about this from an armagh perspective 
really feel we can put monaghan to the sword
armagh by 4

[Logan]

I suppose the fact that Dessie was much the better player on the day, didn't help Stevie's mood.
His sending off didn't go any damage to Armagh in the game.

The misses that day by both teams were shocking. Certainly it was the worst footballing performance by Monaghan in recent times, Armagh were just   more worse than the worst Monaghan could manage.

Couldn't disagree with you at all on that.

That said, Dessie's actions were out of order - and have been.

[thewanderer]

dessie is a kn**ker on the football field but i hope he plays this year as he will be put to the sword by stevie

[bingobus]

Dessie will love all this hatred and attention.

No doubt he'll do his talking on the field.......literally     

[Schkite]

Dessie doesn't give 2 fcuks about all thats being said about him, he will actually love it as it's like job done. He's a proper wind-up and uses every trick there is to put off his opponent, if he does that(like he did to Stevie last year), then he's achieved his aim. I've no doubt Stevie will be much better this year considering the form he's in and the motivation to put thiings right from last year, but Dessie will relish the challenge and I still have faith in him doing a job. He may dabble in the dark arts on the field but is still a fine footballer, no matter what some of ye say. Should be a right battle anyway!

[illdecide]

Dessie doesn't give 2 fcuks about all thats being said about him, he will actually love it as it's like job done. He's a proper wind-up and uses every trick there is to put off his opponent, if he does that(like he did to Stevie last year), then he's achieved his aim. I've no doubt Stevie will be much better this year considering the form he's in and the motivation to put thiings right from last year, but Dessie will relish the challenge and I still have faith in him doing a job. He may dabble in the dark arts on the field but is still a fine footballer, no matter what some of ye say. Should be a right battle anyway!

Is that right Dessie Talking about patting yourself on the back...lol

[GrandMasterFlash]

Dessie doesn't give 2 fcuks about all thats being said about him, he will actually love it as it's like job done. He's a proper wind-up and uses every trick there is to put off his opponent, if he does that(like he did to Stevie last year), then he's achieved his aim. I've no doubt Stevie will be much better this year considering the form he's in and the motivation to put thiings right from last year, but Dessie will relish the challenge and I still have faith in him doing a job. He may dabble in the dark arts on the field but is still a fine footballer, no matter what some of ye say. Should be a right battle anyway!

Is that right Dessie Talking about patting yourself on the back...lol

  Unreal the amount of schoolyard bullshit talk going on here... Kettle, pot, black, greenhouse, stones etc. etc. If it's defmataion of character you're into then Ciaran McKeever's 'ethics' on the football field are questionble to say the least... Lets grow up a bit and get on with the game discussion rather than this nonsense..

I thought I was on the Hoganstand forum there for a minute..