Kieran McGeeney: 'We’re missing things that should be scored. They’re not difficult chances'

McGeeney estimated that Armagh missed nine chances from inside the 21m line against Donegal

Donegal manager Jim McGuinness, left, and Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney after Division 1 game at the Athletic Grounds. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Kieran McGeeney has impressive comic timing for a man with such a fearsome reputation.

The Armagh manager was still digesting the bones of his team’s Division 1 loss to Donegal on home soil when it was put to him that Oisín Conaty couldn’t have done much more with the penalty that was superbly saved by Gavin Mulreany with minutes to go.

“Well, he could have scored it,” said McGeeney. Ba-doom-tish! “Maybe I’m being a bit harsh now. I haven’t scored too many myself.

“Och, listen, that’s the first one he has missed for us but, again, they are just simple things that we’re just missing. We’re missing things that should be scored. They’re not difficult chances. The pressure cooker of not getting those kind of things just builds.” 

Armagh’s issues in front of goal have arisen time and again. Too many misses. Too many fisted points. Not enough goals. They had a rake of wasted point attempts here. By McGeeney’s estimation, nine of them were inside the 21-metre line.

Ten of them against Galway were from a similar range. Frustrating.

What followed was a short debate on the percentages involved in shooting from close-in and beyond the two-point arc. One brought an 80% chance, the other was 36-40%. Maybe, someone said, it's just that the outside noise has filtered in?

“We had four goal chances blocked against Galway, four again against Roscommon so it's not as if we're not going for goals. It's my fault because I gave youse the headlines. Your sub-editor must be going, 'get that fucker McGeeney out there and we'll get some papers sold'.” 

There was no venom in that. It too was delivered with tongue in cheek, even if his annoyance with his team’s continued problems when it comes to building their scores was stitched right through his eight or nine-minute interview.

Maybe it was a case of better to laugh than cry. So, in that spirit, we can’t finish up without his response when asked about a timekeeping issue towards the end of the game when Armagh were pushing for scores.

“I can’t talk about referee fellas. Ye get more headlines off me about fucking referees. You know something: the readers, just so they know, they think we come out and just start going on about referees. ‘Gather around everybody here, start talking about referees and give them a hard time’.

“Youse know: ‘Kieran, do you think the timekeeping was really harsh?’ Suddenly the headline is, ‘McGeeney gives out about referees’. There’s idiots out there love writing about me, they’re infatuated by me. Stop asking me, honestly.”