‘We’ll be back’ vows undaunted Kernan

ARMAGH manager Joe Kernan was non-committal about his and some of his players’ future involvement with the county after Saturday’s defeat to Kerry in the All-Ireland SFC quarter-final.

“Now is not the time to be asking silly questions about retirements and the like,” he told the waiting media.

“We’ve just lost a big game for God’s sake and our heads are down. We’ll drown our sorrows now, lick our wounds and if decisions have to be made they will be made when we are good and ready.

“Today was a bad day at the office for us. But we’ve been down before and bounced back and we’ll do it again. Armagh football is far from finished and with the talent we have coming through, we’ll be back. You can mark that down in your book. As for me there is life left in the old dog yet.”

Things were looking good for the Ulster champions as they held a four -point lead coming up to half time. But Kernan felt the game changed when Kerry knocked over two points before the interval.

Said Kernan: “We played extremely well in that opening half, but no game is won by half time. I certainly didn’t think we had the game won at the break and neither did the players. There were certain aspects of our game which I wasn’t happy with.”

Such as? “We missed some easy scores to put more daylight between ourselves and Kerry. We conceded a couple of soft ones and gave away a bad goal by our own standards. Instead of us taking the game by the scruff of the neck on the changeover, Kerry did, and they had us on the back foot for most of the second half.

“Kerry were the better team in that second half, but to be fair to our lads, with five minutes to go there was still only a kick of a ball between the teams and we were still in with a big shout.

Asked if Kerry were good enough to win the All-Ireland, Kernan had no doubts. “We had been warned about Kieran Donaghy but Francie Bellew did very well on him. I’m not going to blow up a player by saying he’s unmarkable. Kieran is a good player but so too is Francie.

“The tussle between the two was one of the highlights of the game. I said to them in their dressing room that all they have done today is win a game, albeit a very big one, and that guarantees nothing. Today’s game will do them a world of good but there are still some very good teams left in the title race and it’s all to play for.

“But Kerry would be my choice now to lift the Sam on the evidence of what I saw today.”

Oisin McConville has no plans to retire from the inter-county game despite the loss.

“I would like to think I’d be back and I’d like to think some of our team still have plenty to offer,” he said.

“I think I will be numb for quite a while and I am sure no-one will make any hasty decisions.

“We have no complaints — they were the better team. But it is hard to take. We put so much into it and this year I thought we had that killer instinct, but in this game we didn’t really.”

The 30-year-old Crossmaglen Rangers forward, who set a new Ulster championship points-scoring record this season, believes each Armagh player has a tough decision to make.

“Each player has to decide whether they can give the commitment,” he said. “It is a huge commitment — every year you come back it is more and more time and you are just giving your life to it.

“We do have one All-Ireland title but it is probably not enough.

“Some people will have to make do with it, some of us are going to have to move on. We now have to go back to club football — there is no rest from it.”