I’ll pick my best side, says Kieran McGeeney
The Armagh manager has confirmed he intends playing his strongest possible side during this month’s McKenna Cup, starting with Sunday’s opener away to Derry.
However, he’s taken note of developments elsewhere, with Donegal opting to field their U21 side and All-Ireland champions Dublin and runners-up Mayo among those playing hugely weakened sides due to holidays abroad.
“Some teams have no interest in the McKenna Cup and really just want to start in the league,” said McGeeney.
“You see some of the top teams aren’t even putting teams into those competitions, because they don’t have their whole team anyway, so they’re picking high quality challenge games or in-house games.
“I suppose the other side of it is, why bother having those competitions if the top teams aren’t going to partake in them?”
Armagh begin the competitive season at Owenbeg on Sunday.
Top players like Jamie Clarke, James Morgan and Ciaran McKeever will not be seen until the league, though McGeeney has left one ‘AN Other’ spot in his squad still to be filled, while up to seven orchard players will be lining out for the universities.
McGeeney stated: “We would still be down quite a number of players because we have such a young team but we’ll intend to put our best team out, which we probably didn’t do last year”.
“We will try to do that this year but it will depend on who we have available from the colleges.
“I understand the universities, and I think it’s a great competition, but I don’t know why it’s called an inter-county competition — because it’s not if you don’t get to pick your players.
“The colleges feel they can’t be competitive if they don’t have their players so it’s a ‘catch 22’.
“The first round of the Sigerson is not until the end of January, start of February, so they can’t really afford to qualify for the latter stages (of the pre-season competitions) anyway.”
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