Neil Ewing: Why McGeeney is one of the best managers Gaelic football has seen

Kieran McGeeney hasn’t been blessed with a Ferrari but putting Sam Maguire on the front of his bus heading north this weekend would be due reward for a decade of life invested in this group.

TOP MANAGER: Kieran McGeeney results and progress may not have been immediate but that Armagh group transformed once McGeeney took the Bainsteoir bib in winter 2014. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

THE first encounter with Kieran McGeeney, the manager, was in April 2009. I left the discomfort of a student packed house in Galway 10 mins early to head to a pre championship challenge game against Kildare in Johnstown House. The extra 10 mins was needed for a slightly adjusted route, the cost of the toll outside an already blown budget.

I had always admired McGeeney as a player. Suitably belligerent, constantly impactful and relentlessly driving a relatively small county to break glass ceilings on the pitch. He was a decent role model for a teenager dreaming of future silverware with Sligo.