DRIVE through towns and villages in Armagh and you’ll see that the orange and white flags and bunting remain in place and the memories of the Orchard County’s Sam Maguire success four weeks’ ago are still burning bright.
Armagh supporters are in absolutely no rush to close the book on a momentous season but it is a different story on the field.
Reputation counts for nothing as men who played together throughout Armagh’s All-Ireland campaign suspend their friendships and concentrate on driving their clubs to glory.
On the opening weekend of the county championship, Rian O’Neill and Shane McPartlan locked horns as Clan na Gael saw off Crossmaglen and last weekend the clash of Maghery’s Aidan Forker and Clann Eireann’s Conor Turbitt was one of the eye-catching duels.
Forker and his Maghery team-mates got over the line by an injury-time point in that dramatic encounter and afterwards his Armagh team-mate Ben Crealey extolled the many virtues of the Armagh championship.
“It’s exciting isn’t it?” said Crealey after he’d emerged from a packed dressingroom at Sean McDermott Park on Saturday evening.
“It’s great to be back, it’s like you’re starting from scratch again; it’s just hell-for-leather and that’s the way you want it to be. You get respect from getting wins, which we got (against Clann Eireann) and we’re happy with that.”
The previous weekend, Maghery had been pipped at the post by a battling Madden side who scored a goal in the dying seconds. On Saturday evening it was Crealey and co. who conjured up the grandstand finish with five of the last six scores to win with an injury-time free from Stefan Forker.
“We were unlucky against Madden,” said Crealey.
“We probably should have won it and then they got a sloppy goal at the end in the last play of the game. We felt hard done-by but we knew the performance was there and we just wanted the same performance again because we knew we wouldn’t be too far away.
“We needed to be a bit more clinical, which we probably were, and it was good to get the result. We have a good group and I think it’s the young lads who are driving us. All the young lads under 22/23 are pushing us on like Kevin Robinson, Padraig O’Keefe, the Toyes (Tomas and Sean)… “They’re brilliant fellas, they show real endeavour in every game and it drives us all on and we’re hoping to push on next weekend at St Peter’s, we need a result there to get through to the next stage.”
Orchard county supporters might still be giddy over the capture of the Sam Maguire and clubs around Armagh are still queueing up to welcome the famous trophy. However, Crealey says that everyday life quickly brought him back down to earth.
“On an individual level, you get back into routine,” he said.
“You go to work again, you’re training with the club… But the support from Armagh people was brilliant all year and it’s probably going to be the same all winter, the hype’s not going to die down any time soon.
“When you win the All-Ireland after 22 years people are going to enjoy it for a while!”
