DOWN’S bus rolled into the Cathedral City in June 1992 carrying the reigning All-Ireland champions. Armagh, their jealous neighbours and bitter rivals, were determined to knock them off their perch.
The Mournemen had beaten them in a Newry mudbath the previous year en route to an unexpected Sam Maguire and stardom so dethroning them had become an obsession for some of the Orchard players.
Corner-back John Rafferty hails from the Armagh side of the village of Poyntzpass, which straddles both sides of the county border. Blessed with boundless energy, he marked Mourne county talisman James McCartan in that 1991 game and everywhere McCartan went, Rafferty went too.
When the half-time whistle sounded, the 1990 Allstar trudged through the gutters for the sanctuary of the Down dressingroom, but Rafferty refused to let him out of his sight. He chaperoned him to the door, waited there until he re-emerged and walked back out alongside him for the second half.
“I didn’t want him to get lost,” he says with a laugh, adding: “I was young and foolish and had no sense then.”
The game turned on a bit of quick thinking from Greg Blaney who used the new rule allowing frees to be taken out of the hands, to play in Liam Austin who put the Mournemen ahead for the first time in the game.
Down won by two points to take the bragging rights but despite their derby win no-one tipped them to go much further.
“Benny Tierney met James (McCartan) senior coming out of the Marshes that day and he said: ‘It won’t make any difference, the pick of them two teams wouldn’t win an All-Ireland’,” Rafferty recalled.
The unexpected nature of Down’s success must have made it even sweeter for them and even harder to take for Armagh. When the sides were drawn together again in 1992, Rafferty was given the same man-marking role and once again he was determined to snuff McCartan out of the game.
The pair of them met at Mass in Banbridge (coincidentally according to Rafferty) in the weeks leading up to the Athletic Grounds rematch and McCartan’s prayers were answered when he finally gave his shadow the slip in first half injury-time and lashed a brilliant finish past Tierney to give Down an advantage they never lost.
“James definitely had the upperhand in ’92 because that goal set Down up to win it,” Rafferty admitted.
“He was very much in the ascendancy – he was an Allstar, he had an All-Ireland medal, he was at the height of his powers and I was one of the victims.”
McCartan said after the game: “I just turned around and hit it and thankfully it went in, but it was close enough and I think frees made all the difference.”
Indeed, Gary Mason hit seven placed balls to propel Down to a 1-12 to 0-9 victory but it was the Mournemen’s refusal to give an inch in the physical stakes that allowed them to chisel out their six-point win.
A quarter-of-a-century ago, physicality wasn’t just tolerated, it was expected, demanded even, and the hits and digs rained in from the start.
Kieran McGeeney, the current Armagh manager, lasted just 12 minutes before he was forced off with “facial lacerations plus shoulder and arm damage” after a full-blooded 50-50 clash with Conor Deegan. Midfielder Neil Smyth finished with a fractured cheekbone and players on both sides limped off the field nursing bumps and bruises.
“It was just one of those tackles,” says Deegan.
“He was coming out with the ball and he turned round and I was coming full-pelt and I never stopped. I hit him an awful rattle and he went off injured.
“Those things happened back then – they would have been gunning for us and that game was quite attritional, it was very, very, very much a local derby – they always are. We were coming in with an All-Ireland and we were there to be hit and tackled and beaten but we were big enough and old enough to handle it.
“It was Ulster football back then, it was dog-eat-dog and it was a tough environment, there’s no two ways about that – it was one of the toughest environments and you learned your trade very early and very well or you didn’t go anywhere. You sank or swam.”
Last Sunday a Derry player appeared to be punched by his Tyrone opponent, but he didn’t retaliate, nor did his team-mates. In Deegan’s day such an action in a Championship derby certainly wouldn’t have passed without wholehearted retribution.
“We look back at our days with rose-tinted glasses but some of the things that went on during games were unacceptable,” he says.
“But it was accepted then, it was a right of passage that you had to stand up for yourself and if you were hit you had to hit back.
“The difference now is that the game has moved from a pace point of view. The skill levels are very high because the game is played at a higher speed.
“People will look back and think it was much better but I remember speaking to Robbie Kelleher, the great Dublin corner-back, and he was saying ‘For God’s sake I wish they’d stop showing the old Dublin matches on TG4, I didn’t realise how poor the football was’.
“It was catch-and-kick and it was poor but in that era people would have loved it.”
The Down players had enjoyed their Sam Maguire success and, though they raised themselves to beat Armagh, their celebrations took a toll in the 1992 season.
“I think we had enjoyed the year too much and we were always going to come up short,” said Deegan.
“We weren’t the same team we were the previous year which is not all that surprising – the edge was taken off very slightly and that happens.
“We had gone to Boston and San Francisco and we weren’t long home. There was an attempt at trying to keep training and doing the basics out there, but the focus was definitely off.
“You wouldn’t get away with today, it would happen, but there were very few perks back then and for us a trip to the States was a huge thing. There was good craic had by all and we enjoyed it.
“We got past Armagh but we hadn’t done the hard yards and it took us a couple of years to recover. We were a good side and we had enough belief in ourselves to beat Armagh but they were a good side too. There was Martin McQuillan, Neil Smyth… You had a lot of big personalities and players.
“Injuries on the day didn’t help Armagh and that put the game very much in our favour.”
Twenty-five years have passed since the ‘mano-a-mano’ days of the early 90s and the expectations in both counties have returned to near zero.
An entertaining contest is expected between two evenly matched, but limited teams. But remember the words of James McCartan senior after the 1991 game – victory tomorrow could work wonders for the winners.
Verdict – Conor Deegan
RGU DOWNPATRICK clubman Deegan sees home advantage and Down’s Division Two status as being pivotal to their hopes tomorrow.
With little expected of either side on the national, even provincial, scene Deegan doesn’t rule out a memorable clash at Pairc Esler.
“It’s about small goals for both these teams and it’s about moving to the next step,” he said.
“It could turn out to be an absolute classic because maybe the shackles are off, the expectations are low and they can go and play a wee bit more football – throw the kitchen sink at it and go for it.
“You don’t know. They’re two local rivals who don’t like each other too much on the field of play and there’ll be no quarter asked or given. It’ll be attritional but that’s the way we play – there’ll be skelps going in and the players will be going in to hit hard.
“Let’s see who is standing at the end of it but I don’t think there is a lot in it.
“Down stayed up in Division Two which was an achievement and they have been playing at a higher level than Armagh.
“Armagh didn’t get promoted so you would think Down have a better mindset, home advantage will help and training has been going well for Down from what I have heard. You’d like to think we have enough to win the game.”
Verdict – John Rafferty
WITH several past pupils from St Paul’s, Bessbrook in action for Armagh seniors and representatives on both minor teams tomorrow, Rafferty is slightly torn.
Of course, he wants Armagh to win both games, but he wants to see his former charges do well.
“We have a good sprinkling of past pupils in the senior team like Blaine Hughes, Greg McCabe, Aaron McKay, Mark Shields and Ciaron O’Hanlon,” he said.
“Last year between minors, U21s and seniors we had 21 past pupils on the three Armagh panels so there is that element that it there is success for the school as well. “It’s good to see lads who came into the school at 11 years-of-age with wee sparrow legs on them out doing well in the Ulster Championship. It’s nice to see that.
“We have a sprinkling of players in the minor match from St Paul’s playing on both teams so you’re caught between two stools in that you want your county to win but you want the fellas you’ve coached to do well.”
Rafferty, who was assistant-manager with Joe Kernan at Armagh and part of Kieran McGeeney’s management team at Kildare, adds: “My heart is obviously with Armagh.
“But it’s going to be tight. Playing in Down against a team run by two men who put their heart and soul into playing for Down will be a huge task for Armagh.
“I hope it’s a flash of brilliance that wins the game for whoever wins it but I don’t want it to be a mistake by the referee. We don’t want that.
“Hopefully it’ll be a flash of brilliance from an Armagh man and, even better, a past pupil from St Paul’s.”
