Mighty McDonnell still the Daddy

THERE’S life in the old dogs yet. Another All-Ireland quarter-final weekend rolls along with Armagh in the mix and the obits of early 2008 seem a tad premature these days, what with Peter McDonnell’s side still doing what needs to be done and Stevie McDonnell still the bane of corner-backs pretty much everywhere.

For the Armagh star forward right now though, he’s suffering sleepless nights as much as causing them. A new addition to the McDonnell family during the week brought with him the hope of an omen for the year.

McDonnell explains, “Ryan was born on Monday. It’s great to get them home, they’re both doing well. I’ll go to the spare room Friday night, I’ll need a good night’s sleep. I’ve a girl and two boys now, Cliodhna and Kealan as well. When the daughter was born, we won the All-Ireland and when the wee lad was born, we won the national league so I’m hoping that run can continue!”

Again Armagh are back thinking of All-Irelands. If they’re not quite ripping teams to shreds, there’s still something of the relentless about the Armagh wagon, something in the way they marched over Cavan and Down with little enough fuss and the hauntingly predictable manner of the replay win over Fermanagh once they had hung on through that tricky last 20 minutes of the drawn game.

Their manager would say they haven’t really performed to scratch just yet. True?

“I would totally agree with him,” states McDonnell. “Maybe it’s a good sign that you can win Ulster without performing to the best of your capabilities. We still feel there is a lot more to come from this team, hopefully in the wide open spaces of Croke Park we can produce better football, and obviously the result is the most important thing.”

McDonnell has been as prolific as you’d expect, especially with buddy Ronan Clarke back in step after a year out injured. He tormented Shane Goan to the tune of five points from play in the Ulster final.

And though Goan mastered him and kept him scoreless for an hour of the replay, McDonnell retained the kind of patience you can’t switch off against to clip a fine point, slot a free and then bang in the clinching goal for 1-2 in the final ten. Job done against a difficult enough defensive system to get around — sweeper dropped back in front of their two inside forwards — something Armagh are well used to at this stage.

“Most teams are doing that and playing that system now, that’s up to us as a forward line to work around. The way me and Clarkie are playing, we’ll get extra attention but we feel we have other forwards to step up, boys like Brian Mallon and Stephen Kernan. We feel if teams focus on us, we still have other forwards to pull us out.”

Onwards and upwards brings talk of Wexford. It mightn’t have the big flashy warning signs of a Kerry or Tyrone but there’s nothing to suggest Armagh were dancing with glee or booking up semi-final weekend when it was pulled out of the drum.

Not with the teams Wexford have done a job on this year — “When you look at Wexford’s performances, they’ve knocked out some good teams. They’ve probably played better football than us this year,” McDonnell states. And especially not when Armagh have been hurt in the past. He remembers 2004. “We’ve been caught on the hop too many times. We overlooked Fermanagh in 2004 and when you look back, we were thinking of Tyrone in the semi-final and they were probably thinking of us and then both teams got knocked out the same day. The circumstances are the same now but we’re not falling into that trap again.”

And if they really needed an extra cause, Andy Mallon’s absence might drive them. “He’s a massive loss, definitely the fastest man I’ve come across. I was only chatting with him last night, his injury will keep him out for a number of weeks, so I hope we can get a result for him and give him a chance of playing again this year. It’s up to us to do the job.”