ARMAGH captain Clodagh McCambridge says manager Gregory McGonigle’s straight-talking and the belief he has in them as players and team played a huge role in winning their first ever Division One league title.
The Orchard County, who were appearing in their first division one final, were impressive as they defeated Kerry in Sunday’s Lidl National Division One decider 2-12 to 2-9 at Croke Park as they followed up their Division Two title from last season with the big one.
McCambridge was one of the players who approached the Derry native, who was managing her club Clann Eireann, last year to consider the vacant senior county manager position.
McGonigle helped guide the Lurgan club to their first Ulster senior club title in their first final appearance and with a wealth of knowledge of ladies football having previously managed Monaghan and Dublin as well as Ulster University Jordanstown, and also of the Armagh club scene through Clann Eireann was a prime candidate for the job.
Cookstown joint-manager Jason Quinn doesn’t underestimate the challenge of Four Masters in the Ulster semi-final
“It was tough on my mum and dad. I knew I was self-destructing. And I also knew the next phase of that, if I had carried on, it was not being here. I was in a very dark place...” - the life and times of Caolan Mooney
“Greg just tells you how it is,” said McCambridge.
“He has a lot of confidence in the players and I think that belief has fed into us.
“We talked about the final beforehand and we didn’t shy away from the fact that we believed we could win it. There is no point in not addressing that, that is something that we were always trying to get to, and I think that is the belief he has instilled in us.
“It’s a different approach to the way we had it before and he has really high standards of us which we are trying to get to.”
The sides were level at half-time, 1-4 apiece, but early in the second half, Kerry found themselves three up, after a defensive mix-up involving McCambridge and her goalkeeper Anna Carr when Kerry put them under pressure deep in their own defence, and while many teams would have buried their heads after that setback, Armagh’s response was emphatic as they went on to hit 1-6 without reply.
The captain said it was McGonigle’s words about how they respond to such setbacks, spoken from the beginning of the year, that rang in her ears after that.
“We spoke how Kerry would come out at the start of the second half and press us really aggressively and they did. I made a mistake but I suppose as Greg says, you can either go into your shell or you can push on and there is no point in me going quiet whenever the rest of the defence needs supported as well,” she said.
“You just have to push on and we were lucky that going forward we were able to get our own second goal as well to balance it out. It’s just reacting to that, we are going to get setbacks in a game and it’s about how you respond.”
