ARMAGH’S assistant manager Jim McCorry believes the Orchard men should be sitting on more points as they look to secure their Division Two status with two games remaining.
Armagh have four points on the board but draws against Kildare and Clare and defeats to Meath and Donegal leave them perilously close to the drop zone.
The fact that Armagh’s final two games are at home – to Fermanagh and Cork – will provide them with some comfort.
“We said at the start of the year all these games are going to be tight and when you consider we had two draws and we brought it back to a point up in Meath, and the Donegal game went down to the wire, we knew the games in Division Two were going to be like that.
“And Fermanagh is going to be the same.”
Armagh started brightly against Donegal but once Michael Murphy buried the ball in their net on the cusp of half-time, the game swung in the home side’s favour.
“When you look at our results it’s disappointing that we haven’t come out on the right side of some of those. People say: what goes around comes around, and maybe we’ll get a bit of luck and a change in fortune for those last two games. But I think we should be sitting on more points.”
Aiden Forker (knee) is expected to be available for the Fermanagh clash in Crossmaglen on Saturday March 16, while Mark Shields appears to have recovered from a calf injury after coming off the bench in Ballybofey.
Brendan Donaghy was also among the Armagh substitutes last Saturday night and Ethan Rafferty got the last half hour in place of Stefan ‘Soupy’ Campbell who was withdrawn after feeling a twinge in his hamstring.
Niall Grimley hurt his ankle in the closing stages of their one-point defeat in Donegal while Andy Murnin and Oisin O’Neill won’t see any League action.
Hopes were high that Kieran McGeeney’s side could make a push for back-to-back promotions but the two draws have proved costly.
“We would have been targeting the top part of Division Two,” said McCorry.
“Our minimum was to remain in Division Two and to push for promotion. Now that’s looking very, very difficult based on other results...
“Fermanagh is going to be very, very tough and we’ve seen what they’ve done to other teams, and that’s something we’ve to prepare for and we’ve two weeks to do that.”
Armagh’s performance may have been lacking in a few areas, McCorry praised the players’ never-say-die attitude in Ballybofey in the final quarter.
“Going in at half-time after the sucker punch of a goal manys a team would have collapsed completely against a team playing at home with a wind advantage,” he said.
“But the fact that they battled right through to the end and we seen a few storming performances in the last quarter too was encouraging; the likes of Rian O’Neill again who was strong for us and driving the team forward.
“We’re trying different things out, we’re trying different players out to get that balance right for the Championship. Where we are from a process point of view we’d be satisfied, but we’re just not satisfied with the results.”
