All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final: Armagh 1-18 Kerry 1-16 (after extra-time)
From Brendan Crossan at Croke Park
ONCE referee David Gough waved the game over after 90-plus minutes of pulsating and nerve-shredding football, in that moment so many years of hurt were washed away in Armagh.
Nobody climbed the steps of Hogan last Saturday evening to lift silverware – but success must have more than one measure.
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When Kieran McGeeney entered the press room on the bottom floor of the Hogan stand well after 8pm, he looked completely spent by what had unfolded out on the field a little earlier.
And yet, for roughly 16 minutes the Armagh manager spoke with the kind of clarity you’d expect from a seasoned lecturer who’d been honing and crafting his words for a week in advance.
“We have a spectrum we all exist on,” he said. “And sometimes what success looks like in one county will not look like what success is in another county.”
Reaching their first All-Ireland final in 21 years, McGeeney insisted, was reason to celebrate.
He also delivered an abbreviated sermon on a person’s capability and a person’s capacity - and the stark nuances between the two.
This group of Armagh players always had the capability – they just needed to illustrate the capacity to reach the heights which they finally scaled at Croke Park on Saturday night against a teak tough Kerry side.
So, the outpouring of emotion from the Armagh sideline at the final whistle was entirely understandable and justified.
The sheer ecstasy on Geezer’s face painted more than a thousand words, while proud Kerry man and now Armagh selector, Kieran Donaghy held his head in his hands trying to compute the outcome of this memorable All-Ireland semi-final against his native county.
In the last 10 years as Armagh manager, McGeeney has often been lambasted for coming up short in Ulster – never mind in the All-Ireland series – but it certainly wasn’t a day to be gravitating towards the negative energy of the dissenters.
The point in bringing them into the conversation now is, imagine McGeeney had walked away at some point in the last decade?
Where would Armagh be right now?
Had Geezer walked, the team that will now line out in the 2024 All-Ireland senior football final at Croke Park on Sunday July 28 would have almost certainly disintegrated a long time ago and the county back at first base grappling with a bleak future.
Saturday was a day to be savoured by the people of Armagh. Kerry and Armagh produced the kind of life-affirming game that could lift the drooping spirits of any man or woman.
The dust has barely settled on Saturday’s famous semi-final win and yet there are so many moments already etched in the collective psyche of Armagh football.
One is Conor Turbitt as his six-year-old self, jumping for joy in front of a sea of orange in Hill 16, having just administered the last rites to Kerry’s All-Ireland claims.
It was just how he dreamed it.
And the last men standing from the class of ‘09, still burning oil all these years later, Rory Grugan and Andrew Murnin among them.
Grugan’s slightly hunched gait, a paragon of calm in a semi-final that was played at a joyously fast pace from the first minute to the last.
Getting a vital hand in, putting his hand up for Blaine Hughes every time and making the most crucial 20-yard dash of his career to make sure Dylan Geaney saw him as the Kerry sub snatched at his late chance to win the game.
It feels as though Aidan Forker and ‘Soupy’ Campbell have been around forever – sharing four points apiece on All-Ireland semi-final day – each score a serious momentum-giver. Two warrior footballers.
There was an emancipatory feel to Saturday because these are inter-county careers that suffered the hardest of falls.
Down in 2017 at the Marshes. Tyrone beating them out the gates of Croke Park later that year. Fermanagh in 2018 was the toughest of the lot to come back from.
Played in front of the empty stands of Breffni Park during the COVID pandemic, it was men against boys when they ran into Donegal. Each one of them shattering experiences.
And that was before those four penalty shoot-out heartbreaks.
“The big thing about this group that stands out for me is they don’t take the easy option – they don’t quit,” said coach and former player Ciaran McKeever, in the days leading up to Saturday’s semi-final.
Rian O’Neill’s form has been patchy this year. Frustrated in the opening half against Kerry, the Crossmaglen Rangers man exploded into life.
He hit three wonderful points from play – but it was his 66th minute monster strike that raised the roof and put Armagh in front for the first time – the kind of audacious attempt that was supposed to have been coached out of the modern game.
Another golden archive moment was him fetching the high ball on his own goal-line in the dying seconds with Blaine Hughes, fists at the ready, behind him.
With that nerveless catch, it denied Kerry the goal they needed and sealed Armagh’s place in this year’s All-Ireland final.
It was an awesome display by O’Neill.
Never was a bench more important or so wisely used than Armagh’s on Saturday.
Soupy’s arrival brought a swagger to Armagh’s stride.
Later, Ross McQuillan came in for Forker and was awesome - a man-of-the-match contender. Defending. Scoring, Fetching. Assisting. Head up all the time.
McQuillan was the real deal, as was fellow substitute Jarlath Og Burns who thumped over Armagh’s first point in extra-time that gave them the platform to push for victory.
Make no mistake: Armagh beat the best of what Kerry had to offer on Saturday evening.
In the first half, Jack O’Connor’s men looked like a team that had travelled this terrain many times, while Armagh looked every bit the team that hadn’t.
In those opening exchanges, Kerry’s controlled aggression was a sight to behold.
Although Armagh’s attacking play often lacked a cerebral edge, they also realised that the men from the Kingdom defend their own ‘45 with pitchforks.
It was hands on every time with mean intent. And when they weren’t turning over Armagh and countering themselves, Kerry’s sheer ferocity was shooing the orange jerseys out of harm’s way.
Armagh, on so many occasions in that opening 35 minutes, were only too happy to go backwards, relieved that they still had the ball in their hands.
When Kerry attacked, they did it at a higher pace than their opponents with Paudie Clifford sitting at the base of the attack like a savvy quarter-back.
Intriguing duels littered the field. The front-footed Gavin White tried to pin O’Neill back. Tom O’Sullivan was doing well on Turbitt.
Likewise, Barry McCambridge on Kerry’s best player David Clifford, albeit with Aaron McKay minding the space in front of the Fossa clubman.
Anything Armagh got on the scoreboard in that opening half was hard-earned.
Niall Grimley hit back-to-back scores in reply to Seanie O’Shea’s two earlier points and one apiece from Paudie Clifford, Tony Brosnan and Dara Moynihan.
On the half hour mark, Murnin slipped in on the blind side of the Kerry defence but his effort on goal was well saved by Shane Ryan.
Trailing 0-10 to 0-6 at the break, the fear for Armagh was that a sprint start from their illustrious opponents in the second half and it would be game over.
Undoubtedly, Kerry had the winning of this game during that third quarter too – but when two goal chances presented themselves, they had the wrong shooter on them.
Defender Tom O’Sullivan had ghosted forward in the 40th minute after a sweeping Kerry move but he resisted the temptation to shoot for goal before the ball was recycled to David Clifford who clipped it over.
Two minutes later, O’Sullivan should have raised a green flag and put Kerry seven up, but didn’t.
With Armagh committing more men forward, another swift break saw O’Sullivan staring into the whites of Blaine Hughes’s eyes – but blazed wide.
Paddy Burns’s gallant dive towards O’Sullivan just did enough to get in the shooter’s eye-line, and Armagh breathed again.
Afterwards, Jack O’Connor knew where the game was won and lost.
“It looked like that goal chance into the Hill was a critical moment, you know,” said the Kerry manager.
“If that went in, the game was probably beyond Armagh.”
Six minutes later, Kerry finally grabbed a major. Diarmuid O’Connor beat Grimley in the air, putting the ball across Armagh’s goal-line and Kerry corner-back Paul Murphy scooped the ball home to put the favourites 1-11 to 0-9 ahead.
At that point, many of the 55,548 crowd – the vast majority of which were from the Orchard County – expected Kerry to pick their opponents off on the counterattack and slip into their third All-Ireland final in a row with the minimum of fuss.
‘Brave Armagh’ would read the headlines. But, as this compelling semi-final unfolded, Kerry were beginning to wilt, with O’Connor making a double change on 47 minutes.
Armagh stare into an opponent’s soul more than any other team on the inter-county circuit.
Those Kerry pitchforks were starting to turn to rubber too.
In the 51st minute, Jason Duffy – another game-changing sub for Armagh – offloaded to Rian O’Neill to score to cut Kerry’s advantage to three [1-11 to 0-11].
Seanie O’Shea replied for Kerry with a well-struck ‘45 – but then in the 55th minute goalkeeper Shane Ryan fumbled O’Neill’s high ball and the ubiquitous McCambridge somehow stooped to scoop the ball into the bottom corner of the Kerry net to trail by one.
Sheer bedlam on Jones’s Road.
Going down the home straight, ‘Soupy’ Campbell hit two beauties before Rian O’Neill finally put Armagh in front with four minutes of normal time remaining.
It was Armagh’s to lose at that precise moment, even though Dylan Geaney would grab a stoppage-time equaliser for Kerry to force extra-time.
The prospect of another hellish penalty shoot-out was unthinkable for Armagh, and they made sure they finished the job off in extra-time.
Ross McQuillan, Jarly Og Burns and a revived Turbitt ensured that spot-kicks wouldn’t be needed.
To a man, the Armagh players bared their souls - and stole Kerry’s in the process.
This magnificent victory was 10 years in the making.
They never quit - and are now in an All-Ireland final.
Armagh: B Hughes; P Burns, A McKay, P McGrane (0-1); B McCambridge (1-0), T Kelly, A Forker (0-2); N Grimley (0-2), B Crealey; O Conaty, R O’Neill (0-3), J McElory; R Grugan (0-1 free), A Murnin, C Turbitt (0-5, 0-3 frees) Subs: S Campbell (0-2) for P McGrane (h/t), J Duffy for O Conaty (49), A Nugent for B Crealey (57), R McQuillan (0-1) for A. Forker, O O’Neill for A Murnin (62), J Burns (0-1) for T Kelly (71), S McPartlan for C Turbitt (71), C Turbitt for A Nugent (80), O Conaty for R Grugan (84)
Yellow cards: P McGrane (35+1), R O’Neill (59)
Kerry: S Ryan: P Murphy (1-0), J Foley, T O’Sullivan; B Ó Beaglaíoch, T Morley, G White; D O’Connor (0-1), J O’Connor; T Brosnan (0-1), P Clifford (0-3), D Moynihan (0-1); D Clifford (0-4, 0-3 frees), S O’Shea (0-4, 0-2 frees), P Geaney Subs: K Spillane for P Geaney (47), K Burke (0-1) for D Moynihan (47), D Geaney (0-1) for T Brosnan (59), G O’Sullivan for B. Ó Beaglaíoch (64), B O’Sullivan for J O’Connor (81), T O’Sullivan for J Foley (78), Stephen O’Brien for D O’Connor (81), Sean O’Brien for P Murphy (85)
Blood substitution: D Casey for T O’Sullivan (74-78)
Yellow card: P Geaney (2)
Referee: D Gough (Meath)
