Armagh boss disappointed with attitude of some players

JOE Kernan didn’t need to articulate what he was almost certainly feeling after All-Ireland champions Armagh were beaten in yesterday’s Allianz NFL semi-final in Croke Park.

His pride was hurt, and you can be sure his players were feeling even worse. Yet there's little doubt that he's happy they're not planning for a final only seven days before the first defence of their Ulster championship title against Monaghan.

"I was disappointed in some of our own attitudes. Hopefully we have a few weeks to work on that," he said.

Indeed, after Enda McNulty suffered a suspected broken shoulder and both Kieran Hughes and Barry O'Hagan were also injured in the shoulder and ankle respectively he has every reason to be glad of the break.

"It will do us no harm to get them sorted out," he said.

"This was just a bad day at the office. Sometimes your pride has to be hurt to get you going again.

"You'd be telling lies if we said we weren't hurting after that. We didn't play as well as we can.

"At times Laois over-ran us in the first half. If their forwards had been sharp, they could have taken advantage of two or three golden chances. In fairness, overall the best team won, we have no qualms."

Kernan dismissed the notion that their defeat could be blamed on their inability to field a full team.

"That's no excuse whatsoever," he responded. "We had 15 men out there and the 19 we used didn't perform to their strengths. That's the bottom line.

"Kieran McGeeney, Oisin McConville and Ronan Clarke aren't going to carry the can for the rest of the boys."

Mick O'Dwyer doesn't offer any magical solution to explain his team's progress, except that he infers it develops from the trust between himself and the panel. "I treat players properly and when you do that, they will return what you do for them.

"This team is working very hard on their game and becoming highly disciplined on the pitch.

"That's the big difference between the Laois team I took over and the team I have at the moment," he added.

Man of the match Colm Parkinson offered another perspective.

"We have got an extra bit of steel which we didn't have," he said.

"Wexford is what we are thinking of in the championship, he added.

"This is side-tracking us, but there's no point in going through the League unbeaten and losing the final."

O'Dwyer was pleased about a number of the game's aspects, not least the commitment of his players.

He was "delighted" to see Armagh get their goal, because their own response encouraged him.

"They kept coming back and they kept challenging every ball around the midfield and the half-forward line, everywhere," he said.

And he wasn't too worried about missed goal chances, explaining: "When they get more experience, they will be putting them into the back of the net."