'I'm all for playing sh*t and winning' - Armagh change the script to scrape through against Tyrone
WIN'S A WIN: Armagh Manager Kieran McGeeney poses for photos with fans after the game. Pic: ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo.
Kieran McGeeney wrapped far too many weekends this spring talking about how Armagh had played decent football without claiming the rewards their efforts earned. Not this time. This time his lads played well below par but got there in the end.
They stopped playing after building a good early lead, racked up 14 wides for a conversion rate well under 50%, and just about pulled through after extra-time against a side that had won twice in the second tier of the league and came to town trailing a caravan of whispers.
Not a great day on paper, but games aren’t on paper.
“I'm all for playing shit and winning,” said the Armagh manager. You couldn’t blame him.
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This is a man who has suffered the heartache of three successive provincial final losses after extra-time or penalties. Their prize for eking this one out is a quarter-final against Fermanagh in Enniskillen in a fortnight’s time. Nothing else matters for now.
McGeeney, like everyone else, had heard all the talk about the opposition here, and he wasn’t slow in tut-tutting about it. In 40 years he’d “yet to see Tyrone put out a bad team”. He even compared the gloom and doom to the hand-wringing around Kerry 12 months ago.
Is there an Ulster version of yerra?
“It's very difficult. You know, shite sells so it's not really going to change. I'm not being facetious. You're not going to get much of a sales pitch out of, ‘it's going to be an even game, two well-matched teams.’
“If you look at the history, there's always going to be nip and tuck. People like headlines. That's it. People like to listen to headlines. It's human psychology. Bad news sells better than good news still. Write it off and everybody will eat it up.” How close was it?
Eoin McElholm skidded a low shot wide after what proved to be Conor Turbitt’s 87th-minute winner, and Niall Morgan sent a ‘45’ wide in the tight window that shut seconds later. It could just have easily gone to a shootout. Again.
McGeeney gave a nod to the minute margins at play when pointing to the cramp Morgan had suffered by that end point and the impact it had on his kickouts in that period of extra-time. Armagh must feel they were due some of that luck in Ulster.
None of this drama looked likely after the opening quarter when the hosts had built up a 0-6 to 0-1 lead. They were winning the midfield battle and Tyrone were amassing a whole host of shots that fell wide or short, most of them from distance and from Ethan Jordan.
It didn’t augur well.
The fightback actually started between the first-half bookends that were the losses to injury of midfielder Brian Kennedy and forward Darragh Canavan. Still down by four at the break, Tyrone were level nine minutes after the restart.
Conn Kilpatrick was giving a tour de force in midfield, Mattie Donnelly’s introduction had injected pace and energy into the forward line, and they dominated the game in the air in that third quarter. A slow day was now going through the gears.
Tyrone went a point up with 15 to go, fell behind again and rescued extra-time with a last-gasp goal from Ben McDonnell. Armagh were already down to 14 men by then after Darragh McMullen’s second yellow card down the stretch.
The added 20 minutes were a blast from start to finish.
Armagh scored 1-1 in a blur, the goal coming from Tomas McCormack. Tyrone equalised via a pair of two-pointers. They pair were level again soon after the start of the second extra stint but the scoring rates were drying up and Turbitt’s fisted effort got the job done.
The pitch invasion that followed – for a provincial preliminary round game – said it all.
“I thought we were in control a lot of the time and we gave the ball away,” said McGeeney in the midst of a media scrum. “Even for the goal, we gave the ball away three times along the sideline there. It was just silly things.
“In fairness to the fellas, it couldn't be easy down a man in the modern game, it's very difficult to play against. To do that for the last 10 minutes of the game and the whole of extra time and to come out winners, it says a lot for them, although not playing at their best.”
Kudos to the management too. Armagh made four changes at the end of normal time. They pushed up on Morgan’s kickouts when a man down. They rolled the dice, McGeeney explaining later that they didn’t really have any other choice.
“The way the rules are now, they're trying to make it as 50-50 as possible … so you don't have a choice because once a team gets into your half it's basically a shot … The best place to try and get it is probably the kick-out. You just have to do your best.”
O O’Neill (0-6, 3f, 1 2pt-free); C O’Neill (0-3, 1 2-ptf, 2f); T McCormack (1-0); R McQuillan and C Turbitt (both 0-2); D McMullan, C McConville, T McCormack (all 0-1); B Hughes (0-1 ‘45’).
B McDonnell (1-0); C Kilpatrick (0-4, 1 2-pt); M McKernan (0-3, 1 2-pt); M Donnelly (0-3); E Jordan (0-2, 1f); P Teague, C Daly, S O’Donnell and E McElholm (all 0-1).
B Hughes; P McGrane, A McKay, C O’Neill; R McQuillan, G Murphy, J Og Burns; T Kelly, B Crealey; G McCabe, D McMullen, T McCormack; C McConville, J Duffy, O Conaty.
C Turbitt for McCormack (43); O O’Neill for McConville (51); J McElroy for McQuillan (56); R Grugan for Burns (62-64) and O’Neill (65); P Burns for McGrane, T McCormack for Murphy, C McConville for Crealey and R McQuillan for McElroy (all 70); J Duffy for McCabe (87).
N Morgan; C Quinn, P Teague, N Devlin; C Daly, J Clarke, M McKernan; B Kennedy, C Kilpatrick; B Kennedy, C Kilpatrick; S O’Donnell, R Cassidy, B McDonnell; D McCurry, E Jordan, D Canavan.
M Donnelly for Canavan (19); K McGeary for Kennedy (27); E McElholm for McCurry (49); L McGarrity for Jordan (57); C Bogue for Cassidy (both 65); A Donaghy for Daly (73); B Cullen for McGeary (78); A Clarke for Quinn (85).
N Mooney (Cavan).
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