Armagh supporters celebrate, on Hill 16, after the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final match between Armagh and Kerry at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
‘Freed from Desire’ by Gala has become the Armagh football team’s anthem ever since it was boomed across the Croke Park sound-system after their All-Ireland semi-final victory over Kerry.
Hill 16 bounced and you worried for the safety of the Armagh patrons in the upper tiers of the Hogan and Cusack stands such was the enthusiasm with which the 90s dance classic was received.
It was the perfect beats per minute song for that moment given the emotion that was unleashed by David Gough’s final whistle, but perhaps something a little less high tempo better captures the journey that has brought Armagh to Sunday’s All-Ireland Final.
Perhaps ‘The Long and Winding Road’ by The Beatles would be a good choice because Armagh’s route back to the biggest day of all has been a circuitous one.
No-one knows that better than team selector, Ciarán McKeever, who was in his first year as a senior panellist when they last reached an All-Ireland Final in 2003.
He was still a player when Kieran McGeeney became the team’s Head Coach in 2014 and then manager the following year.
And even when McKeever’s own playing career ended in 2017 he quickly threw himself back into the breach by managing the county minors for two years before joining McGeeney’s backroom team as a selector so he's seen the 10 years of McGeeney’s management tenure play out from a few different angles.
Did he always feel like the project was moving in the right direction?
“After the 2014 All-Ireland quarter-final when we lost to Donegal by a point, you would have liked things to go in an upward trajectory after that but it didn’t happen,” says McKeever.
“People from the outside wouldn’t realise, we had nine, 10, 11 retirements – boys who were able to still offer something even if it was just staying around the squad helping younger players or being impactful off the bench.
“People left for various reasons, they were getting married, had young families and maybe they felt that was their last shot at winning an All-Ireland or getting to the late stages of an All-Ireland.
“Then 2015 until I retired in 2017, it was difficult, there’s no question about it. We weren’t getting the buy-in, players were committing then dropping out after six months. We just weren’t at the standard that the other top teams were at.
“I remember going in to play Donegal in 2015 at the Athletic Grounds and people were talking about us maybe going and winning Ulster and potentially being All-Ireland contenders, their heads were cut – we couldn’t get out of Division 3 and that was the level we were at.
“We knew it was going to take time. I had several conversations with Geezer, I was done, finished, I felt I couldn’t play at that level anymore truth be told, but he got me to stay on till 2017 just to be about the squad.
“I retired in 2017 and I was sent down to the Armagh minor squad and I was given conditions to look for, what he wanted from that 2019, 2020 minor team. What he was looking for in terms of different aspects of how to build a squad to take us to where we are now.
“That’s the way he was thinking and we got that. From that team we have Peter McGrane, Oisin Conaty and another four or five players who are in the matchday squad.
“That was Geezer thinking of those missing links and what we had to develop at academy level for that three, four-year project to leave them in a good stead to compete at senior level when they come in.”
Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney, centre, and selector Ciaran McKeever, right, after their side's victory in the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Round 3 match between Galway and Armagh at Avant Money Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada in Carrick-on-Shannon, Leitrim. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile.
Building a squad of real depth was always a central plank of McGeeney’s approach, and now in an era where the championship is a condensed one with so many matches if you make it as far as the All-Ireland series, it’s increasingly looked like a wise one.
Armagh’s bench impact has been key to their progression to Sunday’s Final, and that’s a product of huge competition for places in the starting XV and full-blooded in-house matches that have really driven standards.
“Back in the noughties in our in-house games were competitive but I think the football is completely different,” says McKeever.
“It’s a different style of football to the modern game. There were a lot of big, physical contests in the noughties that you saw at training whereas now it’s tactical. I don’t think any modern-day manager veers away from that.
“The game is very tactical and based around a lot of set plays and our in-house matches this year from the get-go have been insane. I do believe this has led us to where we are today.
“You have 10, 15 boys that are not starting on that so-called A team on a Tuesday night that want to push and try and get in there. They’re pushing that orange team to the pin of their collar and vice-versa. We have a policy that if you’re not up to scratch you can be substituted within training and someone else will take your spot.
“That has kept an edge on the whole squad.”
The Armagh management team has also worked hard to hone their own edge.
Together they’ve created a hot-house environment where the collective standards are driven by the ambition of all the individuals involved.
“I’m still learning, you’re always learning,” says McKeever. “You go to Croke Park (for Galway v Donegal) and you’re learning.
“It’s one thing about the management team Geezer has put together, we’re all learning off each other daily.
“Myself, Star (Kieran Donaghy), Deets (Conleith Gilligan), Ciaran McKinney, Dennis (Hollywood), we love getting together pre-training for that two hours and bouncing ideas off each other and bouncing ideas off the Geezer man.
“We’re trying to get better as a unit, we’re trying to get better as coaches. We’ve an unbelievable management team that wants to spend time with each other and improve and make the group of players that we have better.”
Manager Kieran McGeeney, left, with selectors Kieran Donaghy and Ciarán McKeever during an Armagh Media Conference ahead of the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final at the Carrickdale Hotel in Dundalk, Louth. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile.
Recent meetings between Armagh and Galway have shown they’re two very well-matched teams, so Sunday’s All-Ireland Final is likely to be won by the team that better handles the occasion.
The hugely vocal and colourful Armagh support will do all they can to electrify the players on the pitch, but McKeever knows it’s important they can regulate that voltage either side of the white lines.
“There’s no question about it, it’s massive having that energy, having that noise, but it still boils down to the fact that we have to make clear decisions as a group, as a management team, as players going down the home stretch,” he says.
“In previous years when that energy and that noise was coming, we played with the whole chaos of that.
“It’s definitely an area we have improved on over the last few years, us as a management team on the sideline included.
“It’s manic, it’s mayhem, there’s a lot of energy all over the stadium but we have to detach ourselves from that.
“Yes the players do feel it but I think they realise they still have to be decisive in every decision they make in the moments.”
It's been a long and winding road for this Armagh team, but if the Croke Park DJ belts out 'Freed from Desire' around 5pm on Sunday, all they'll care about then is the final destination.
