Football

Armagh NFL focus: McGeeney’s men must find creative spark for difficult second album

History goes against Orchard county when it comes to defence of All-Ireland crown

Armagh celebrate  during Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC Final at Croke Park in Dublin. 
PICTURE COLM LENAGHAN
Armagh celebrate during Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC Final at Croke Park in Dublin. PICTURE COLM LENAGHAN

WHEN Missy Elliott’s debut album Supa Dupa Fly took the world by storm in 1997, selling 1.2 million copies in the United States, she said that she found herself ‘creatively paralysed’.

“I just kept going [to the studio] and nothing was sounding right,” she told MTV.

It took her two years to return with a second album which, by the standard of second albums, did well.

But it’s always just different when success unexpectedly puts you in a bearhug from behind.

Armagh will have gone back to the studio later than everyone else, as is customary for All-Ireland winners.

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When you’ve found the formula once, the new expectations alter reality.

“You just walk and talk a different way when you have it in the pocket,” Donegal boss Jim McGuinness reflected late last year in an interview with The Irish News.

Problem is that winning has to be reimagined every year.

And history tells us that second album, whether it’s Missy Elliott or Kieran McGeeney, is one of the hardest things of all to do.

They will have collected clippings and audio files aplenty in the last two months.

Armagh were given no real chance of winning an All-Ireland last year.

They did it, but it hasn’t altered the world view of quite where they stand.

The bookmakers have them as fifth favourites behind Kerry, Dublin, Galway and Donegal.

Armagh during Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC Final at Croke Park in Dublin. 
PICTURE COLM LENAGHAN
Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney may contemplate some personnel changes in the early weeks of the League in an attempt to shake up his deep squad Picture: Colm Lenaghan

That would tally with a lot of the thinking. Not too many pundits have them any higher.

But as reigning All-Ireland champions, why? History. It is almost entirely down to history.

Kerry and Dublin are exceptions to every rule in Gaelic football.

Remove them from the debate and the weight of the past leans very heavily against Armagh.

Meath did back-to-back titles in 1987 and ‘88, and their great rivals Cork took the next two consecutively.

They’re the only teams outside the big two to have achieved it since Offaly in the early ‘70s.

26 different One-In-A-Row teams have climbed the steps in the last half century.

Armagh in 2003 are the only team in the last 50 years to have even made it back to an All-Ireland final the year after winning it.

It gets deeper.

From 1975 until the back door was introduced in 2001, every single All-Ireland winner that wasn’t Dublin or Kerry failed to even get out of their province the following year.

In the quarter of a century since the qualifiers first came in, only Armagh in ‘03 and Tyrone in ‘09 have even made an All-Ireland semi-final as champions.

Even Kerry themselves have only gone back-to-back once since 1986. They reached at least the last eight as champions every time since but made the final just twice, in 2008 and 2023.

Outside the unprecedented six-in-a-row, Dublin haven’t done back-to-back since 1977.

So yeah, you’ll forgive us an in-built scepticism.

It’s really not an Armagh thing.

It’s just that these things tend not to go well for anyone.

How do the 2024 champions arrest such statistics?

They may not have been naturally disposed towards the introduction of the new rules, which will force the break-up of a defensive system that worked really well for them last year.

But everyone’s system is getting broken up the same way.

Where Armagh have an advantage is that their transition play improved tenfold last season.

They wanted to go fast. They have kickers, they have ball-winners and they have scorers.

The two best teams at transition play over the last few years have been Kerry and Dublin. When they broke, they went as hard as they could. It was such a central part of their game.

Last year, and the mid-section of McGeeney’s reign when they wanted to kick ball but hadn’t yet married with the right defensive structure, means the idea of it is already more deeply embedded than for most.

But no matter what different All-Ireland winners have tried, no matter how different their walk is, it’s rarely a good different initially.

It’s like they have to learn to walk all over again in year two.

In Division One this season, Armagh will face a Tyrone team who have struggled to reach the heights of their 2021 All-Ireland success

The medal softens things. Takes the edge off. Withers the chip on your shoulder.

If there’s a ‘but’ for Armagh, it is the Ulster title.

To try and take a stab at their psychological stance right now, that’s the trophy they still haven’t won.

It’s 17 years this summer since they last won it, and they’ve lost the last two finals on penalty shootouts.

A prospective semi-final with a Tyrone side many are expecting to find their spark and then a final possibly with Donegal or Derry again? That has to be the medium-term focus of their attentions.

Tyrone will be their case study. Since their surprise success in 2021 they’ve been nowhere. They lost a lot of their depth but also maybe stayed too loyal for too long to out-of-form players.

If Armagh are serious about backing last year up then last year has to mean absolutely nothing.

It was the strength and depth of their bench that carried a lot of the weight, so there are options there if McGeeney wants to shake it up.

Culling a few big names from the starting team for a month ought to keep things lively on the inside.

But in a new-look sport, they must avoid creative paralysis as well. Everyone will have to change. If Armagh are too reticent to do that, too insistent that this is what worked last year, then their title defence will flounder.

The size of an edge they’ll need will not be provided by newspaper columns and podcast punditry.

Football is edging towards a 1990s-type spell, where neither Kerry or Dublin are obliterating the landscape.

They are both unquestionably weaker personnel wise than they were even last year, when neither of them won it.

There are more All-Irelands out there to be won this decade.

But when that happens, they tend to be shared around rather than hoarded. That in itself prevents any third superpower emerging, but it’s what makes an unpredictable period like this exciting.

Armagh are as capable as any All-Ireland champion of going back-to-back.

It’s just that history tells us that being capable and doing it are two very different things.

Half a century of One-In-A-Row All-Ireland defences

Offaly 1982: Leinster final v Dublin ‘83

Dublin 1983: All-Ireland final v Kerry ‘84

Down 1991: Ulster semi-final v Derry ‘92

Donegal 1992: Ulster final v Derry ‘93

Derry 1993: Ulster quarter-final v Down ‘94

Down 1994: Ulster preliminary round v Donegal ‘95

Dublin 1995: Leinster final v Meath ‘96

Meath 1996: Leinster final v Offaly ‘97

Kerry 1997: All-Ireland semi-final v Kildare ‘98

Galway 1998: Connacht final v Mayo ‘99

Meath 1999: Leinster quarter-final v Offaly ‘00

Kerry 2000: All-Ireland semi-final v Meath ‘01

Galway 2001: All-Ireland quarter-final v Kerry ‘02

Armagh 2002: All-Ireland final v Tyrone ‘03

Tyrone 2003: All-Ireland quarter-final v Mayo ‘04

Kerry 2004: All-Ireland final v Tyrone ‘05

Tyrone 2005: Round two qualifier v Laois ‘06

Tyrone 2008: All-Ireland semi-final v Cork ‘09

Kerry 2009: All-Ireland quarter-final v Down ‘10

Cork 2010: All-Ireland quarter-final v Mayo ‘11

Dublin 2011: All-Ireland semi-final v Mayo ‘12

Donegal 2012: All-Ireland quarter-final v Mayo ‘13

Dublin 2013: All-Ireland semi-final v Donegal ‘14

Kerry 2014: All-Ireland final v Dublin ‘15

Tyrone 2021: Round one qualifier v Armagh ‘22

Kerry 2022: All-Ireland final v Dublin ‘23

Dublin 2023: All-Ireland quarter-final v Galway ‘24