What now for Armagh?

[mackers]

With the benefit of hindsight, the downward curve started after the 05 semi final, the last two league campaigns have been very poor and Ronan Clarke virtually won the Ulster and kept us in the Kerry game on his own last year. Joe has brought us unprecedented success but he definitely stayed a year too long. With Clarke gone before the year started we had the whole league campaign to organise things and adjust our style of play in the forwards, result was 18 pts in two matches. It has definitely been a wasted year.  As stated in previous posts I am happy with the talent coming through but would definitely be keeping Geezer on board to instil the determination and will to win on the new crop coming through. Hope the new manager plays them! Great to see Kevin Dyas coming on but keeping Vernon and Toal on the bench was unforgiveable.

[GPA not OK]

Geezer would be crazy to carry on for another year. He was on his knees when Derry broke away to score the winning point. I'm not saying it's his fault, but he is not fit to play the role of talisman for this team any more and no matter what his committment this is not going to improve at this stage. 36/37 is too old for County football.

I was at most of the National League games this year and the presence of Toal and Vernon yesterday would have changed nothing. Both of them have had opportunities in the league and in the games they played Armagh still struggled to put scores on the board. I'm sure these players will be present on successfull Armagh teams in the future. Maybe a different system will help them along with a different manager.

I think a good clean out is required and its probably a year overdue.

Players that I would think it important to stay on include:

Enda
Bellew
McGrane
McDonnell
M. O'Rourke

[mackers]

Sorry GPA, I didn't make myself clear, by keeping Geezer "on board" I meant on the management team.  However, your point about Toal and Vernon I would disagree with. Toal, especially, would have been a useful asset to have when we were on top and kicking all the wides. An accurate forward like him could well have got the score or two that would have taken us over the finish line.

[Star Spangler]

If I was an Armagh supporter I think what would bug me most is the fact that this team (as stated on the Sunday Game last night) was a great team that didn't deliver on its potential.  Consistently up there for the best part of 10 years, one All Ireland isn't a good enough return.  Down supporters might slag them off, but as far as I remember '91 and '94 came out of nowhere - Down didn't have anything like the consistency of this Armagh side.

[GPA not OK]

That's different Mackers and I would agree with that.

I get the impression that Toal failed to show the necessary committment / workrate to break into the team. I'm not a Harpsman and I've only seen him play a few McKenna Cup matches and the odd league game and its clear that he is a great talent. But this team is not about raw talent. If we were relying on talent alone there would have been no All-Ireland. Its about workrate and perhaps Kernan felt that it wasn't forthcoming from Toal.

This is my hunch and if it was right, then I have nothing but respect for Kernan's stance. Allied to that, his impact in the League wasn't that impressive.

But, it is a pity. When Armagh were winning the All-Ireland and playing better football more scores were forthcoming from half-forward and midfield. McEntee, McGrane, Toal, Loughran and McKeever were all scoring regularly. Stephen Kernan got the only scores from this zone yesterday. If Armagh are to compete in the future, they'll need players like Toal to step up to the mark.

[offtheground]

Aritcle from the Sunday tibune on interview with Stephen Kernan;


Orchard's fresh bloom 
Kieran Shannon


A FEW days after Armagh returned from La Manga in May, probably the best wing back in hurling and probably the best wing back in football met up for a meal with their partners in a restaurant in Cork.

Sean Og O hAilpin and Aaron Kernan had been friends since O hAilpin's International Rules teammate Philip Loughran introduced them at the 2004 GPA awards. O hAilpin had just been honoured as the Hurler of the Year while Kernan was only a fringe player with the Armagh seniors, yet within moments O hAilpin was congratulating Kernan on his All Ireland under-21 success the previous month. The pair would spend most of the next three hours in each other's company; in Kernan, O hAilpin detected a kindred spirit. The morning after that year's All Ireland final, some of the Cork team were on their way from the bar to bed when O hAilpin shot past in his running shorts, on his way out for a run. A few weeks later Kernan trained with his club the afternoon after he'd won that under-21 All-Ireland. Winning for both of them wasn't an event but a lifestyle.

The night in Cork was enjoyable. Kernan had befriended the county's football goalkeeper Alan Quirke on the All-Star trip in Dubai and Alan's sister was Sean Og's girlfriend, so when Kernan and his girlfriend Marianne had a few days off after her exams and his pre-championship training camp, it was a chance to all meet up.

The following morning, at eight o'clock, O hAilpin and Kernan teamed up again, this time in the gym. First they cycled, then lifted some weights and then it was core, a series of exercises to strengthen the muscles around the stomach and groin. Kernan had been a keen advocate of core for over three years. O hAilpin though had been doing it ever since Ger Hartmann introduced him to its merits shortly after his car accident, and so showed Kernan some of Hartmann's more advanced manoeuvres that made them look like gymnasts on acid playing Twister.

It might have been nine in the morning and it might have been his holidays but Aaron Kernan's pursuit of excellence is exhaustive.

He's been friendly with Down's Martin Clarke ever since he rang to wish him well on the eve of the 2005 All Ireland minor final but that contact has been intensified in recent months as Kernan has sought tips on the diet and preparation Aussie Rules' latest phenomenon has been adhering to.

Martin McHugh has observed Kernan's capacity to improve. "When Aaron came along in 2005 and won Young Player of the Year, people still questioned his ability to defend. They can't question it now. The last day against Donegal, the amount of ball he swept up was incredible. The fact he has two feet, the way he's so comfortable on the ball, the way he's built up his body; he's very close to having everything. With [Seamus] Moynihan gone, I'd say he's now the best wing back in football."

For Kernan every setback and every victory has been an opportunity to learn. In McHugh's eyes Kernan was the man of the match in Crossmaglen's latest All Ireland club final replay win, yet Kernan himself was disappointed that two frees he took out of his hands were held up by the wind; since then he's practised hitting them off the ground to get more power and control.

In Ballybofey six weeks ago, Kernan was again deemed the game's outstanding player but the player himself felt he'd contributed to Armagh's downfall.

"There were times where I felt, 'God, I'm a wee bit tired here' and there's no way I should have been tired. The day after I was even more annoyed because I felt there was more I could have done. After their goal, I had a ball out on the wing and tried to hit a 40-yard pass to Geezer [Kieran McGeeney]. There were about 15 players between us. It was too hard a pass to try. All we needed was to hold the ball and get someone in a better position and I kicked it away. But again, it was a learning experience."

Everything is. Kernan grew up in the most football-obsessed household in the most football-obsessed town in Armagh but that held little weight in his late teens. In his last year at minor, he was only a sub with the county.

The following year he still couldn't get a game with Crossmaglen while his brother Stephen and Michael McNamee and John Murtagh could. Ronan Clarke, his old underage adversary from Pearse Ogs, had broken onto the county team and won an All Ireland.

"I was frustrated because I thought I should have been playing but maybe if I had got my chance then I wouldn't have been as determined to make it. If things had been handed more easily to me, if people could say, 'Oh, he's Joe Kernan's son, he has to play', then maybe I'd have started to think, 'Yeah, I'm always going to get on.' It just got to the stage where I'd stay behind after training every night and practise my shooting or passing or whatever."

The following May Kernan made his championship debut with Cross. That November he was their player of the year and called up to the county senior panel. Now he's one of the mainstays of that panel. This past two seasons Armagh have needed last-minute scores from Stevie McDonnell to avoid relegation but in each of those games it was Kernan who kicked the point previous to McDonnell's interventions.

His involvement in this year's face-off against Westmeath was particularly telling.

The previous Sunday Kernan had won an All Ireland club title. It was everything he had ever dreamed about, sharing the moment with his brothers and seeing old Cross heroes like Gary McShane and Joe Fitzpatrick run onto the field to hug him seven years after he'd sprinted onto Croke Park as a kid to embrace them, yet the following morning Kernan was working out in the room his father converted into a gym over the winter.

That night he had a couple of drinks but on the Tuesday he was back training with Armagh.

"It was no big deal. To be honest, I couldn't wait. I didn't want to come back playing Division Three football next year and it wouldn't be right to drink my head off and expect to play for Armagh. When you come onto a team with leaders like McGeeney and [Paul] McGrane and Enda [McNulty], you know no other way."

He cannot say enough about those men.

About their legacy ("We're allowed to play in Croke Park now; there's no curse saying Armagh can't win there, that Armagh can't win All Irelands"), their dedication, their knowledge of the game. When the team went away to Dublin for a recent training camp, Kernan made a point of sharing the same car as McNulty to pick up some more nuggets on how to tackle.

McGeeney is the same, always there to show him how to get the hand in and how to get it quickly out to stop forwards grabbing onto it and win the easy free. They're willing to take advice too. At least on the training ground. On match day? "You do as Kieran tells you really. That's basically it."

Last November Kernan broke his arm when he was hit by a late challenge as he was kicking the ball. It ruled him out of the rest of Crossmaglen's Ulster club campaign and he couldn't work for a few weeks in the estate agency firm he's taken over from his father.

He couldn't drive to viewings, couldn't type.

Yet the Wednesday after breaking that arm, he was in the family gym, doing some core.

Every day he works out.

"It's no big deal, " he shrugs. "I enjoy it, like.

You nearly have it in your head that you're a professional so doing something about it keeps you happy."

Cross and Armagh might mean he plays all-year round but he maintains people who truly love the game don't get burned out. "If you take care of yourself, you can play most of the year. I feel better now than I did before the club final or the Donegal game. People talk about all the games we played in 2005, that our run in league and Ulster cost us the All Ireland, but how many games had we from May to September? Something like 10.

In Aussie Rules they play 22 games in 22 weeks."

He hopes to be playing week in, week out himself now. He's apprehensive about today, the fact it's Derry ("They kicked the shit clean out of us in the league this past two years") and Paddy Bradley ("An unreal footballer"), but if Armagh survive Clones, he thinks they can go on a run that will take them all the way to September. In Ballybofey they learned that they must keep playing aggressively to the final whistle, that Paul McGrane doesn't just roar "Next score" for the sake of it, that they must drive on like Kilkenny and the All Blacks when they have their opponents by the throat, but above all, they learned they still have it.

"Anyone who says we weren't pushed about winning another Ulster wasn't in our dressing room after the game. It was the first time a few of us had ever lost in Ulster and we were gutted. But Joe came in and said, 'Boys, we'll be okay. You played well.' Even out on the field, Brendan Devenney said to me, 'The better team got beat today.'" Win or lose, Aaron Kernan was going to push on. He always will, come what may on any given Sunday.

[corn02]

GPA I saw McGeeney on the ground, I don't think it was down to tiredness, I think he knew it was going over the bar.

Aaron Kernan seems very down to Earth in that article, would still like to see him out of defense though.

[GPA not OK]

Look, from playing football I know that sometimes things happen on the pitch that you can explain. But on the line it looks awful. So perhaps he was further from the action than I thought, but it looked bad.

He was on his knees after sliding in for the ball. The ball broke for a Derry man who was subsequntly surrounded by Armagh men. When it came out of the melee, maybe 5-10 seconds later, Geezer was still on his knees. That ball was passed out to Devin who pointed. It was not at all Geezeresque.

I don't care whether it was tiredness or hopelessness. If anything the latter is much, much worse.

PS, had Stephen Kernan been on his knees in the same situation.....

[Kerry Mike]

Armagh were a great team and provided great joy to their supporters and the GAA in general over the last 10 years, and today is no day for kicking the wounded dog. 

They should have added a second All Ireland to their great win in 2002 and history will show that dispite there numerous Ulster titles it will be the All ireland that they will be remembered by. I stood and applauded them on that great day in 02 even though I hate losing, but to see the sheer joy it meant to them to win a first ever title will remain with me for many a long day. There was an old fellow from Armagh sitting next to me in the upper Cusack that day and he could not get down on the field for the celebrations and we just stood and chatted about football and what the win meant to him, there were tears in his eyes and no matter how many All Irelands we win you could not replicate his feelings.

However I think they have been on the wane since 2003. Losing to Tyrone in that final took the heart out of them. They had become very predictable in recent times and i wrote here after last year when Kerry beat them that I thought there should have been changes made to management and to some of the personal. There is no doubt that the likes of McGeeney, McNulty, Bellew, McGrane, McConville and the likes were great servants to Armagh football but I think their legs have gone. The McEntees probably pulled out at the right time after the club final.

Big Joe has been loyal to his players and they to him, but like Kerry at the end of the 80's there were no real new faces coming through and it just got stale.  Armagh need a new structure and it is probably time for Joe to hang up the runners up plaque from 1977 on his sitting room wall again.

They need a clean sweep too of those older players and bring on the minors and U21 players of recent times, I think too, and its a personal feeling, that the success of Crossmaglen has mitigated against new players breaking through and I think if any new management can cast their nets wider there has to be players available to fill the void. Its time for the other clubs in Armagh to stand up and put an end to Cross's dominance and that in itself may provide the dam burst for alot of club players to make the break through at county level.

I think even the Armagh supporters have become either tired or complacent with the whole setup and you have seen dwindling crowds over the last couple of seasons where once they had full houses at all games.

Anyway well done to Armagh for their successes over the last decade and best wishes for the future, I think they will be back shortly in some form.

[brokencrossbar1]

From an Armagh point of view this defeat could be more beneficial than people realise.  As has been stated by some posters tehre is the same voice syndrome, which no matter who the same voice is it can cause a team to become stagnant and bereft of ideas and motivation.

The players themselves, outside of getting older and slower, have also probably lost the edge.  The mental fatigue of having to pursue the dream year in year out is very wearing on the mind and body and it gives eventually.  No matter how focused you may think you are, in the tight game, when you are one point down, and the player is running away from you, your legs go mentally more so than physically the longer you have been doing it.  McGeeney  on his knees was not a physical thing, it was a realsiation that he simply did not have it anymore.

New faces, new tactics, new emphasis on youth, less opportunities for people to make outlandish claims about nepotism, that is what is needed.  

Also, now is a time for supporters to re-evaluate what they expect from the team.  For too long supporters have demanded that the All Ireland be there that year.  Armagh have had a very consistently god team this last ten years but remember we are not the stronghold of success that we would like to believe we are.  It is OK to demand success when you are a Kerry, a Dublin, a Cork or a Kilkenny, but Armagh are not a patch on any of these counties.  Much has been done to change that but supporters should realise that success is not easy to attain and mistakes will be made by players and management along the way to achieving success.  For some perspective on Armagh's success from 1890 to 1996 Armagh won 7 Ulster Senior Championships, from 1997 to now they won 6, 1 AI, 1 National League.

Well done to players and management over that period and hopefully recent under 21 success can be transferred on.

[maddog]

Armagh were a great team and provided great joy to their supporters and the GAA in general over the last 10 years, and today is no day for kicking the wounded dog. 

They should have added a second All Ireland to their great win in 2002 and history will show that dispite there numerous Ulster titles it will be the All ireland that they will be remembered by. I stood and applauded them on that great day in 02 even though I hate losing, but to see the sheer joy it meant to them to win a first ever title will remain with me for many a long day. There was an old fellow from Armagh sitting next to me in the upper Cusack that day and he could not get down on the field for the celebrations and we just stood and chatted about football and what the win meant to him, there were tears in his eyes and no matter how many All Irelands we win you could not replicate his feelings.

However I think they have been on the wane since 2003. Losing to Tyrone in that final took the heart out of them. They had become very predictable in recent times and i wrote here after last year when Kerry beat them that I thought there should have been changes made to management and to some of the personal. There is no doubt that the likes of McGeeney, McNulty, Bellew, McGrane, McConville and the likes were great servants to Armagh football but I think their legs have gone. The McEntees probably pulled out at the right time after the club final.

Big Joe has been loyal to his players and they to him, but like Kerry at the end of the 80's there were no real new faces coming through and it just got stale.  Armagh need a new structure and it is probably time for Joe to hang up the runners up plaque from 1977 on his sitting room wall again.

They need a clean sweep too of those older players and bring on the minors and U21 players of recent times, I think too, and its a personal feeling, that the success of Crossmaglen has mitigated against new players breaking through and I think if any new management can cast their nets wider there has to be players available to fill the void. Its time for the other clubs in Armagh to stand up and put an end to Cross's dominance and that in itself may provide the dam burst for alot of club players to make the break through at county level.

I think even the Armagh supporters have become either tired or complacent with the whole setup and you have seen dwindling crowds over the last couple of seasons where once they had full houses at all games.

Anyway well done to Armagh for their successes over the last decade and best wishes for the future, I think they will be back shortly in some form.

Well said Mike, there are plenty of players to replace the old heads, and while JK has took us a long way i feel its time to freshen things up.
They have given us great days like we only dreamed off in the bad old days. If there is a clear out and change in management i think we will be knocking on the door in 2008.

[GPA not OK]

Very generous post there KM and no less than I would have expected.

I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some kind of change now in mgt with some of the senior players quitting. I don't know how any team is going to challenge Cross' dominance though in Armagh. It is definitely unhealthy, but I just can't see that the quality is there anywhere else in the county.

The fact that Madden reached a senior county final a number of years ago says something. Had Dromintee won one of their finals things might be different, but I fear that they are now going backwards. The Harps should have pushed on after their good minor team, and so should the Ogs. But neither did...

Some team needs to..

[thebandit]

From an Armagh point of view this defeat could be more beneficial than people realise.  

For some perspective on Armagh's success from 1890 to 1996 Armagh won 7 Ulster Senior Championships, from 1997 to now they won 6, 1 AI, 1 National League.

Well done to players and management over that period and hopefully recent under 21 success can be transferred on.

This gives Armagh a chance to rebuild. Ironically Paul Kernan could be part of the setup next year, as could David McKenna, and Joe would have been lambasted (as Paddy Heaney might say) for bringing them in. The whingers must realise that this was Armagh's last chance with this team and setup to challenge for an All Ireland, and that Joe had to persist with the tried and tested for this year.

As for the Stephen Kernan furore, I think he showed adequately yesterday why Joe took a chance on him.

[GPA not OK]

So on your witch hunt it doesn't matter, just that he was on his knees?

Anyhow, a lot of rubbish being written here. Armagh prob need a fresh approach, but no doubt they will be back again next year.

It's not a witch hunt Mid-Louth. If you read my post, you'll see that I'm not "out to get" McGeeney. He has been a fantastic servant to Armagh football. The best ever. I also qualified my post by saying that sometimes things look worse from the line than they actually are.

Also, I didn't think he should have come back this year until I seen how he played in the International Rules last year and when he came on against Derry in the league he showed that he still "had it".

But, I do feel that it was a stark sign for himself and the team. Kieran is 36 or so. He and the rest of this Armagh team have been in the later stages of the championship since 1999. That is crazy committment. I play for an intermediate club and find myself, that I struggle to get through one season and that sometimes the end of the season can't come quickly enough no matter how well we are doing.

I marvel at the character of McGrane and McGeeney. It seems that it never became a chore to them. As BC said, it looks like it eventually caught up with Kieran yesterday. Its a pity, but I think every player that plays as long as he does, eventually has a moment like that. Unfortunately, it was very uncharacteristic of the Geezer everyone admires.

[Great Leap Forward]

If indeed it is the end of the road for a lot of the 'aul hands' on this Armagh team then Football will be the loser. Contrary to what Jack O'Connor might think this team did change football as we know it. They took the inter-county footballer into the 21st century with their professional approach to training and nutrition.

These guys put themselves in a position to achieve more in their careers than some players that had more talent.

I reckon if they had won another All-Ireland McGeeney and co would have retired at the top a la Canavan.

I have to admit that I feel that Armagh's unshakable belief in their ability to win games came back to haunt them a few times, particularly in the two games this year and the game against Tyrone (05) and Fermanagh (04). They had all of these games there for the taking but didn't go for the kill. Watching these games it seems like they felt they could grind out a narrow win instead of finishing the other team off. It wasn't as if they didn't have the firepower.

Having said that it would be unfair not to mention the finest hours of this team in particular the 02 final, the qualifier against Dublin the following year and their demolition of Donegal in 2004.