Rian O'Neill caps rewarding night for Armagh in Breffni

The visitors won this quarter-final in the first half but had to endure some late scares

Cavan's Ciarán Brady and Armagh's Jason Duffy

Ulster SFC: Cavan 0-12 Armagh 1-14 

Armagh put right a festering wrong on Saturday evening by claiming back-to-back Ulster Championship wins for the first time in 15 years.

Nine-point winners against Antrim in the preliminary round encounter earlier this month, they also welcomed back key forward Rian O'Neill after injury, so not a bad way to spend their weekend.

The visitors won this quarter-final in the first half, cruised through much of the second and then had to endure a few needlessly nervy moments at the game’s end. Cavan's belated smash-and-grab attempt didn’t deserve a reprieve.

Eagle-eyed history buffs will know that it was the same counties defeated, and in the same order, when Armagh won their last provincial title in 2008, but not many teams will spurn the 20 or so chances Cavan left behind here.

The winner of Down - who Armagh saw off in the semi-final a decade-and-a-half ago - versus Donegal await in the last four and the 2002 All-Ireland champions should have another level to reach as they look ahead.

It has to be said that Cavan were desperately disappointing. Promoted from Division 3, they will meet an Armagh team demoted from the top tier next spring, but they looked worlds apart at times in front of 11,527 mostly sodden supporters.

The din from the local kids blowing their plastic horns behind the town end goal grew dimmer as the floodlights got brighter and much of the second half was played out to a barely perceptible hum as the hosts struggled to make a game of it.

Cavan started off with the light blanket of rain falling lazily in their direction but Armagh’s superiority was fairly obvious from the off and it stretched from one end of this great bowl of an amphitheatre to another.

Jamar Hall, Ciaran Mackin and even scorer-in-chief Conor Turbitt were ruining Cavan’s plans deep in the Armagh half, providing highlight defensive reels for a collective effort that reduced the hosts to too many punts from distance and unproductive cul de sacs.

Turbitt was again Armagh’s main man up front. He finished off two intricate team moves to get the scoring up and running early on and it took Cavan a full 13 minutes to find a way onto the scoreboard with a Cian Madden point.

Kieran McGeeney’s lads built on their good early start with Hall, Mackin and Stefan Campbell all pushing forward and finding different angles and corners from which to have another pop at Raymond Galligan’s posts.

Slowly but surely the numbers started to tick, tick, tick in their favour.

They claimed six of the seven points recorded in a 12-minute period midway through the first half and when Ben Crealey fisted in at the far post after another probe into Cavan territory with half-time approaching they were 1-10 to 0-4 to the good.

Cavan did at least start about redressing the issue before the break with Conor Brady finding himself in an ocean of space for one score and then launching the attack that ended with Madden popping over another before the change.

Seven points of an advantage was no more than Armagh deserved and, while Cavan claimed the opening pair of scores on the restart, there wasn’t any sense of any dramatic turnaround until a very late Cavan flurry of four points in the last ten minutes of normal time.

That the end game wasn’t more taxing was down to their talismanic forward Rian O’Neill.

Injured in training towards the end of March, O’Neill missed their last league game, against Tyrone, and the Championship opener against Antrim, but came on as a sub here nine minutes into the second half.

His main contribution for much of it was the collection of a yellow card but he dived across his own goal in the 68th minute to push a Tiernan Madden shot around the post with his goalkeeper already beaten.

A goal then would have left just three points in it with two minutes to go and another five added on for good measure. Too close a shave given their obvious edge for so much of it and McGeeney will know that better than anybody.

Scorers for Cavan: P Lynch (0-4, 0-1 mark and 0-1 free); G McKiernan (0-3, 0-1 free); C Madden (0-2); C Brady, O Brady (both 0-1); R Galligan (0-1 ‘45’).

Scorers for Armagh: C Turbitt (0-7, 0-3 f); B Crealey (1-0); E Rafferty (0-1, ‘45’); R Grugan (0-1 free); C O’Neill, G McCabe, S McPartlan (1-0), J Hall and A Murnin (all 0-1).

CAVAN: R Galligan; K Clarke, P Faulkner, J Mc Loughlin; C Brady, O Kiernan, G Smith; G McKiernan, J Smith; C Brady, D McVeety, J McCabe; C Madden, P Lynch, O Brady.

Subs: N Carolan for McLoughlin (29); T Madden for McCabe (HT); C Madden for Kiernan (59); C Moynagh for Smith (64); B Boylan for Brady (68).

ARMAGH: E Rafferty; C O’Neill, A McKay, A Forker; G McCabe, C Mackin, J Og Burns; B Crealey, S McPartlan; S Campbell, J Hall, J Duffy; R Grugan, A Murnin, C Turbitt.

Subs: R O’Neill for Hall (44); A Nugent for Murnin (55); S Sheridan for Crealey (58); C Cumiskey for Duffy (66); C Higgins for McPartlan (69).

Referee: P Faloon (Down)