A tough task in hand for new-look Armagh side

PERHAPS one of the greatest achievements of Armagh football since their reemergence as a force in Ulster football 10 years ago is that they have succeeded in imposing themselves on the public consciousness so effectively that even as they face the All Ireland champions in Clones tomorrow, many are reluctant to write them off.

That despite all recent evidence and logic (such as it is in Ulster football) suggests that Tyrone will pull through.

Armagh are, of course, reigning Ulster champions but so pronounced is their evolution from the great team that won the All-Ireland in 2002, so dismal was their defence of said Ulster title last year and so mediocre their recent league form that we really shouldn’t trust them as much as we do to pull off an upset tomorrow. And yet there are still so many players in their ranks who know how to navigate the choppy waters of Ulster football and others who have more Ulster titles than their illustrious counterparts in the Tyrone corner.

Armagh folk have been comforting themselves all week with the notion that having the game in Clones, which has witnessed many of the days that made the Armagh machine brand leaders in Ulster, gives them a psychological advantage of sorts. People will recall Mickey Harte’s vain attempt earlier this year to get this fixture played in Croke Park. Apart from the concerns that Clones might not have had the capacity to contain the expected level of public interest, Harte’s campaign in itself would’ve been a tacit acknowledgement that Tyrone rightly see themselves as a Croke Park team. The simple fact is that apart from a spellbinding performance against Donegal in their last Ulster title winning season two years ago, Tyrone haven’t always graced St Tiernach’s Park with the same swagger or sense of ownership Armagh have.

The Orchard County followers are further emboldened by the fact that Tyrone have struggled in the early rounds of the Ulster Championship recently. Last year, Down caught them after a replay and three years ago, when last defending their All-Ireland title, Derry annihilated them in Omagh. Irrespective of form and standing in the game at present, Armagh will not go into the game with an inferiority complex and they will take heart from Tyrone’s apparent susceptibility at this stage of the season.

Having two of the better forwards of the modern era, Steven McDonnell and Ronan Clarke, at the edge of the Tyrone square should ordinarily be considered a further plus for Armagh but because they have played and indeed outplayed other teams with twin strike forces such as Kerry and Derry in the recent past, the Tyrone back-line and sideline are familiar with the geography and geometry used to nullify that threat. For some peculiar reason that good strategists like Jack O’Connor and Damien Cassidy are still trying to figure out, Tyrone appear unperturbed — even if not entirely within themselves — playing against twin aerial threats. Teams such as Mayo and Cork with less imposing and possibly less talented inside lines tend to fare better against the Tyrone defensive system because their attacks are less predictable, more mobile and don’t always have the pre-determined diagonal ball as the end product. In Mayo and Cork, the attacks can come from a myriad of sources and there is an expectation everyone from the half-back line up will contribute to the scoring effort. Armagh might have to employ similar tactics tomorrow to keep Mickey Harte and his six backs guessing.

Much has been made of Charlie Vernon’s absence through injury and of Paul McGrane’s absence after his retirement from the Armagh midfield. Substantial and significant though these absences may be, they aren’t necessarily the mortal blows some would have us believe. Tyrone very rarely depend on midfield dominance to win any big matches these days, instead relying on their huge work-rate forcing turnovers to compensate for anything less than parity at midfield. Once they get something approaching a 50/50 possession ratio, their supreme economy and unrivalled ability in the foot-passing stakes ensures they usually end up ahead at the end. In the only two games of any consequence they had in the league (against the eventual finalists Kerry and Derry) Tyrone may have taken time to get to grips with the inside two, but once their defensive system smothered the scoring threats, the opposition seemed to run out of ideas. Because Tyrone are so adaptable from one block of time within a match to the next, opponents would need to have more than a few attacking options and need to be employed at a pace greater than is usually seen at this time of the year from Armagh teams.

Had this game been played this time last year there would have been the underlying worry that the older men on the Armagh team would have found that they stayed one summer too long and the younger men would’ve buckled under the burden of expectation. With the recent retirements of Bellew, McGrane and McKeever the chance of the former happening has all but been eliminated but I’m not so sure that the young guns in whom Peter McDonnell has placed so much trust are yet ready to bear the weight of expectation created by the compelling and crusading dynasty that came before them.