Grimley: We didn’t take Rossies lightly

Armagh assistant-manager Paul Grimley has slammed claims by Oisin McConville that a complacent approach was responsible for the Orchard County’s shock defeat by Roscommon.

Paddy O’Rourke’s troops headed into last Sunday’s All-Ireland qualifiers’ opener against the Connacht outfit at Hyde Park as red-hot favourites to clinch a second round place.

Roscommon had suffered a 14-point hammering in the provincial campaign by Galway, who were subsequently beaten by Sligo, whereas Armagh had impressed in running Tyrone to a three points deficit in the Ulster semi-final.

But after looking reasonably comfortable when holding a five-point lead at half-time, Armagh capitulated in the second half and Roscommon went on to clinch a 1-11 to 1-9 win.

Commenting on his county’s performance, 2002 All-Ireland winning hero McConville said: “Roscommon were disjointed. They’ve lost players. The word going down was that they weren’t the team that they were two years ago in Croke Park against Tyrone.

“You would have to say that Armagh fell into that trap. We were complacent. We were five points up at half-time. We should have closed the game out. We could have been 10 or 12 points up at half-time.

“To put the whole game in context, it’s a game we feel we left behind but at the same time Roscommon definitely deserved their victory on the day.”

In response to McConville’s comments, Grimley said: “There is no substance whatsoever in the claim that we went down to Hyde Park underestimating Roscommon or not giving them sufficient respect.

“In fact, that was a message that we hammered home to the players when we stayed overnight in Sligo on Saturday.

“We stressed to the players to take no heed of the fact that Roscommon had lost to Galway by 14 points in the Connacht Championship, and that a setback like that could drive a team on and galvanise the players as a group.

“It was obvious that the Roscommon players would be all out to redeem their reputation and any gripes that may have been in the camp beforehand could work in their favour.”

Regarding Armagh’s disappointing second half performance, Grimley said: “We were struggling to win possession in the middle third of the field after half-time and Roscommon’s ball-winning ability was having a massive impact.

“We did everything we could to rectify this by bringing on subs but unfortunately that didn’t do very much to improve the situation.

“Once Roscommon scored 1-2 early in the second half we knew we were in trouble, and sometimes that’s the way games go.”