Stevie Wonder brought us back into game, says McConville

ON a day when so much went wrong for their regular marksmen, it was fitting to talk afterwards to three of the Armagh forwards for whom things eventually came good.

Steven McDonnell who is normally most deadly had spent a most frustrating afternoon in the close company of Donegal corner-back Niall McCready. “Niall is a very good man-marker so I knew it wasn’t going to be easy today and it certainly proved that way”.

A major part of Steven’s problem was the cover provided in front of the two Armagh front-runners by Donegal’s other corner-back, Damien Diver, who was allowing Tony McEntee a free roaming role outfield. The sending off of Donegal full-back Raymond Sweeney in the 39th minute, however, changed all that, with the result that the taller McDonnell now found himself with a bit more room to operate.

Twenty-one minutes into that second period, however, man advantage or not, the All-Ireland champions still trailed Donegal by a clear goal, heading for trouble. Then came that one chance, that one clear opening that separates the best of the corner-forwards from the rest. High ball in from John McEntee, McDonnell one-on-one about 20 metres out on McCready, only one thing on his mind from the moment the ball was in the air.

“Ideally I like the early ball but it doesn’t matter how it comes in, high or low, I’ll fight for it anyway. When it did come in high I knew I had a good chance of winning it in the air, and goal is the only thing on me mind at that stage. You’re a couple of points down, go for broke.”

That he did, beat the Donegal number two, then beat the number one, ball in net, game tied.

Impressed was Oisin McConville, Armagh’s other goal-scorer: “It was a brilliant goal but that’s what Stevie does. He brought us back into the game, fair play to him for having the courage to stand up and knock it into the net. At that stage, we were really struggling“.

Really struggling mostly because they hadn’t been taking half of the scoring chances they were creating, all through the game. Most guilty on that count was the normally deadly-accurate McConville himself, five first-half misses: “We started off, kicked a few wides, the confidence wasn’t as sky-high as maybe it should have been for a team entering its second All-Ireland semi-final in a row. Fair play to them, they were putting great pressure on us. They knew coming in our forward line has clicked for the past couple of months, they were wary of Stevie and Diarmuid inside. It was looking like it was going to be one of those days, so we were lucky to get the goal when we did, because at that stage we were struggling most.”

While Oisin was fulsome in praise of McDonnell, Steven was equally impressed with the way the Crossmaglen-man had put away his chance: “I doubt if you’ll see a better penalty kick all year than that there, right in the bottom corner. That’s the way penalties are meant to be taken”

Last minute, Armagh just a point ahead and struggling to hold back a desperate Donegal, most guys would have opted for the point. Not McConville: “I could have knocked it over the bar but I had a ghost to lay to rest from last year. Hopefully that’s gone now, I’ve been reminded of it so many times this past 12 months.”

Mind you, Oisin should never have had that penalty chance. Sub Paddy McKeever had really impressed on his introduction, knocked over a point from wide right on the 13m line having just suffered the same wide-shooting malaise as the rest of the Armagh side, then shook off a heavy tackle from Donegal keeper Tony Blake to slot the ball to the net, only to see it called back. Delight, then disappointment in equal and instant measure for Paddy.

“I was very disappointed with the referee now, I’m sure Oisin was glad at putting away the penalty, but I got a goal here last year in the semi-final and I had a wee notion I was going to get another. It was a frantic game to come into, my first couple of touches weren’t that great, but I was just glad to get on. Hopefully, I’ll be there again in the final.”