Hard cross for Kernan to bear

FIRST Omagh and now Crossmaglen. For eight years, Armagh and Tyrone have held Ulster football in their vice-like grips but the twin towers of the northern game both came a cropper on home soil against their provincial brethren this weekend.

Armagh’s demise, and the manner of it, was the more surprising because Derry were five times, not five points, the better side.

Though glancing anxiously over their shoulders at the Division One exit door, the Ulster champions were outplayed and, worse, outfought, in their own back yard by a side who approached the game with troubles of their own besides the league table.

Paddy Crozier’s side made the short trip on the back of a dispute that saw Eoin Bradley leave the panel last week and with his brother Paddy said to be sidelined by a hamstring injury for another three weeks.

With their only league win registered in the first week of February they looked ripe for the plucking. However, an Armagh team minus the Crossmaglen boys proved to be the losers on a miserably dull and wet day at St Oliver Plunkett Park.

“We didn’t match Derry’s tenacity,” said an upset Joe Kernan. “Maybe we’ll have our own wee row in the camp this week. That might help. We need it because there were no excuses for that. Some boys need to look at themselves. They’re not putting in the effort.

“Division Three is staring Armagh in the face and it would be a disgrace for us to allow that to happen after all the good work that has been done over the last eight or nine years. We’re not doing ourselves any favours.”

Fringe players like Padraig McCreesh at wing-back and Paul Keenan at corner-forward did their fledgling inter-county careers no harm but few of the other unfamiliar faces begged further attention.

Armagh’s next assignment is in a fortnight’s time against Down but, though he could do with their input, Kernan will wait until after St Patrick’s Day before discussing the return for the Cross contingent.

As it is, they weren’t entirely devoid of experience here. Paul McGrane returned to the midfield while Kieran McGeeney and Diarmuid Marsden – making his first appearance since 2004 – came on as subs.

None were functioning at Derry’s level. Paddy Crozier’s side played a sublime, short-passing brand of football that could have been suicidal in less assured hands given the aquatic conditions.

Derry had talent sprinkled all over the field, with Kevin McCloy at full-back, James Conway in midfield and Conleth Gilligan at centre-forward edging the individual honours in a strong cast.

Gilligan, dropped from the panel last year, ended the afternoon with half a dozen points and his fingerprints were all over another cluster of their scores. Crucially, the other five starting forwards also found the target, as did Conway on two occasions.

“That was the same performance as we put in two weeks ago against Kildare when we lost,” said Crozier. “We didn’t take the scores but we knew we had the best forwards in Derry. They hadn’t become bad players overnight and we knew that on another day they would put 75% of those scores over. That’s what they did today.”

They scored with their first attempt, but it owed as much to Armagh goalkeeper Ciaran McKinney’s failure to clear a dropping ball as it did to Ruairi Murray’s swinging fist.

Armagh cancelled that out within seven minutes when Barry Gillis stepped over his line having collected McGrane’s dropping point attempt but the reprieve was temporary with Derry tagging on six points before Armagh could respond again.

Five points separated them at the break, a limited gap given the largely one-way traffic, but that stretched to eight by the 60th minute, at which point Derry pulled down the shutters.

Four subsequent points from Armagh hid the paucity of their efforts on the scoreboard but it wasn’t enough to pull the wool over the eyes of a clearly fuming Kernan afterwards.

“They didn’t do the things we asked them to do. There was no drive in them, which is disappointing in an Armagh team. We’ll be making decisions in the next few weeks when the Cross boys come back and some of these boys will be making way.”

ARMAGH: C McKinney; A Mallon, E McNulty, F Moriarty; P McCreesh, C McKeever, T McClelland; P McGrane (1-0), J Lavery; P McKeever, C Vernon, M O’Rourke (0-1); S McDonnell (0-4, 2f), M Mackin, P Keenan (0-3).

Subs: D Marsden for Mackin 26, JP Donnelly for McClelland 23, K McGeeney for K McKeever 42, K Toner for Vernon 42, P Forker for P McKeever 65.

DERRY: B Gillis; K McGuckin, K McCloy, J Keenan; P Cartin, SM Lockhart, G O’Kane; F Doherty, J Conway (0-2); R Murray (1-0), C Gilligan (0-6, 4f), M Lynch (0-1); R Wilkinson (0-1), E Muldoon (0-1), Paul Bradley (0-2).

Subs: G Donaghy for Murray 38, L Hinphy for O’Kane 57, J Kelly for Lynch 67, R Convery for Doherty 69.

Referee: P McEnaney (Monaghan).