Paddy Burns of Armagh during the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Armagh and Galway at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
By John Harrington
As reigning All-Ireland champions Armagh have a very large target on their backs coming into this year’s championship campaign.
They’re the current yard stick for every other team with ambitions of winning some silverware, so for all of their opponents motivation will be easily sourced.
Armagh corner-back, Paddy Burns, knows they’re the hunted, but he doesn’t mind one little bit.
“We’ve gone through the League being the hunted already and that’s part and parcel of being the reigning champions but we’ve got used to that across the League,” says Burns.
“We played a number of teams who, possibly rightly, will feel they should have beaten us last year and who were out to prove a point.
“I assume it won’t be any different in the Ulster Championship or in any game we play this year, it’s something you have to deal with and we’re learning that all the time and getting better at it but there’s still plenty of learning to be done.”
Armagh begin their Ulster SFC campaign on Saturday with a trip to Coriggan Park to play Antrim and it’s hard to know for sure what to expect from them because their League form was so up and down.
Apart from their draw with Mayo, they either lost or won every game convincingly. In the debit column you have a six point defeat to Galway, an eight point defeat to Donegal, and a 10 point defeat to Kerry.
But in the credit column you have an eight point win over Tyrone, an eight point win over Dublin, and a 15 point win over Derry.
That final round victory over Derry was just about enough to see them retain their Division One status, which Burns ultimately believes made the campaign a successful one even if their form fluctuated.
“The last time we went up we stayed up for a year and then went down,” he says. “Staying up this year was a big thing for the future of Armagh as opposed to us older players in the squad.
“I’m not putting any timeline on who’s staying and who’s going because I’ve learned over the last few years that there’s no point in doing that because you just keep going if you feel healthy and you’re fit to.
“It was moreso the younger players and future players. The longer we can keep Armagh in Division One, the more those players who are coming into the squad feel that they belong there and get used to playing at that level and are ready to play Championship football against the best.
“Division Two served us very well last year so I’m not saying Division Two would be the end of the world but it (Division One) gives those boys a slightly better chance of competing against the top teams and learning their trade at that level.”
Paddy Burns of Armagh shoots to score his side's first goal during the Allianz Football League Division 1 match between Armagh and Mayo at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds in Armagh. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
Burns is 32 now but still feels like he has plenty of petrol in the tank and was in no way tempted to drive off into the sunset with a Celtic Cross in his back pocket after last year’s All-Ireland Final win over Galway.
“To end it like that would feel like a bit of an injustice to the rest of the team and the squad,” he says. “You know it would be: ‘I’ve got my success so I’ll leave yous to it’. What’s driven us on is competition within the group and everybody pushing each other on.
“If the cohort of us boys who are over 30 had decided: ‘That’s us’ well that’s not for the good of Armagh. We want to push on for more success, we had been knocking at the door for a long time and hadn’t got there and success breeds success. We’re hungry for more and that’s what we want.”
Corner-back Burns has more competition for a place in the starting XV this year from promising young players like Tomás McCormack and Gareth Murphy, and that’s a challenge he relishes.
“I don’t speak to them at all!”, he jokes.
“No, I have a good relationship to those boys. It’s Gareth’s first year in but Tomás has been there a couple of years and I’ve had plenty of conversations with him about what he’s doing well.
“I told him last year: ‘I’ve been in your shoes’ because he was playing and training well but couldn’t get a gap into the team. I told him to keep at it and his time would come.
“He’s very much ready to play at this level and he showed that through the League, he’s got a great attitude and I’d be very hopeful that he’ll have a long career with Armagh and I’ll be happy to hand the jersey over to him.
“That’s what drives success. If the so-called ‘starting team’ wasn’t getting challenged in training – which is maybe where we were seven or eight years ago – then you don’t get that progress because you’re only getting test on match days and you don’t really know where you’re at.
“Whereas when you have a deep squad and nobody is sure of their position it makes training more competitive and it also ensures that the team that is taking the pitch has been properly road-tested for the challenges they’ll face.
“I think it’s probably the most important thing and it’s why we put so much emphasis on the contribution of the squad in our success last year because we just wouldn’t have had it without the contribution of the (number) 16-plus.”
Paddy Burns of Armagh with his daughter Clodagh after his side's victory in the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Armagh and Galway at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile.
The Orchard county are red-hot favourites to start their provincial campaign with a convincing win over Antrim on Saturday but Burns has been around the block long enough to know there’s no such thing as an easy thing in the Ulster club championship
“We’ve been there before. My Championship debut was way back in 2018 against Fermanagh where we went in as hot favourites and we didn’t take the right attitude into that game.
“We’ve had those experiences before so it’s just about treating it like any other game – Antrim are at home, they’ll have the crowd on their side on a tight pitch, the atmosphere will be good and hostile towards us. We need to find a way to perform.”
