Defence-minded Armagh set to write off Yeats county on narrower Navan pitch

AFTER the excitement of Sligo’s stirring fight back during the Bank Holiday weekend, the fevered support that trails Armagh, and the unpredictability of this replay, the teams have been given a side show role this weekend.

The choice of Navan as the stage is one thing, but the early evening throw-in beggars belief. While, there are televisual considerations, surely the entertainment put on by them a fortnight ago deserves a little more respect.

“We are disappointed with how we are starting games,” Sligo midfielder Paul Durcan said this week. “But, at the same time, we are happy with how we have been finishing them. Against Armagh, we went at them and managed to get the scores. Nobody knows why we aren’t producing 70 minute performances. But, we have improved as a team as the summer has gone on and we are a lot stronger for the replay.”

Durcan, whose workmanlike performances in midfield have been overshadowed by the talent of Eamon O’Hara this summer, expressed disappointment at the choice of venue, saying it will cause unnecessary friction when it comes to tickets. Certainly, the decision not to play the game in Croke Park seems to punish Sligo more than Armagh.

Much has been written about the Croker jinx on Armagh. That aside, the wide expanses suit the free flowing style of Sligo’s football. While Navan is a wide enough pitch, it is narrower than Croker and will suit the effective, hustling defensive orientated football of Armagh.

Durcan says the venue makes no difference, but each time Sligo have entered Croker, the Dublin game last summer notwithstanding, they have played with a vigour they barely display in Connacht. Will they be able to translate this zip onto the less salubrious surrounds of Paírc Tailteann?

Sligo will need to deny Armagh any goals while finding ways through the solid Armagh defensive line. They did that to great effect, after being reduced to 14 men the last day, but having learnt their mistake, will Armagh decide to retreat back into their shell?

This perception of Armagh as being overly defensive has started to annoy the players. Kieran McGeeney said as much this week. And when you see Clare hurlers, at least as overtly defensive as Armagh if not more so, being lauded as dogged heroes with an insatiable desire to win and for whom no battle is too tough, it is understandable why.

Similarities between Armagh and Clare are easily drawn. Both teams are based around a defence hard to breach, both rely on quick thinking forwards to get a crucial goal, both like to squeeze the life of the opposition. And there will always be tight margins in the games either team play.

The crucial goal is the key. Armagh always seem to muster a goal from somewhere, and although they haven’t shown it in any major way this summer, they have forwards with the ability to conjure scores from nothing. A major surprise in the Armagh selection was the omission of Barry O’Hagan for the plainly out of sorts Paddy McKeever. O’Hagan is a good weapon from the bench, though, perhaps in Kernan’s thinking, following his side’s collapse in the drawn match.

“We have put the drawn game behind us. Sending offs can have strange effects on games, anyway. We can have no excuses, we were coasting, six points up and we fell apart.”

Or fell back. No matter how much Armagh deny it, they have a tendency to fall into the trap of holding what we have, impossible to do in Gaelic football. They have the best defence in the country, tomorrow they will give another exhibition of dispossessing without fouling which all prospective, young backs should watch, but they need their attack to be more clinical, with the exception of the superb Oisin McConville.

We have written off the Yeats county thus far. Why break the habit? Armagh to squeeze through after smothering the game in the narrower side streets of Navan.