OISIN O’Neill insists Armagh have shed the disappointment of their Ulster Championship exit to Donegal six weeks ago and says they are “still as close as ever” to reaching Croke Park.
The Orchard men will be reacquainted with defending All-Ireland champions Tyrone in Sunday’s win-or-bust All-Ireland Round One Qualifier at The Athletic Grounds following their respective first round provincial defeats.
A quirk of the new back door format is that the early provincial fallers are still only two games away from reaching the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
With the Division Three and Division Four teams being diverted to the inaugural Tailteann Cup, the chances of some of the bigger guns clashing in the All-Ireland Qualifiers was significantly higher.
“I was sitting in the carpark outside work, probably a few minutes late going in, waiting on the draw,” said O’Neill, who was a second-half substitute in Armagh’s six-point defeat to Donegal on April 24.
“More than likely we were going to draw a really, really good team and it was no shock to us that we got Tyrone. We had prepared for a Division One team and hopefully we are ready now.
“Ultimately, we see this is as taking another step and trying to get a step closer to Croke Park, trying to get to the last eight and being in the draw for the next round.”
Armagh will be aiming for a hat-trick of wins over their arch rivals on Sunday, having already beaten them in a fiery National League clash and a McKenna Cup tie earlier this year.
While Armagh were touted as being strong contenders for this season’s Ulster title, they struggled to hit the high notes in Ballybofey.
However, O’Neill insists there was “no hangover” from that disappointing display and were comforted by the fact that the distance to the last eight remains the same.
Speaking at a press briefing in The Athletic Grounds last week, the Crossmaglen man said: “That is the way we looked at it in the changing rooms in Ballybofey.
“We are still only two games away from an All-Ireland quarter-final and Croke Park and ultimately everyone knows where you have to be. The goal hadn’t changed. Yes, we mightn’t have been able to win an Ulster Championship but we are still as close as ever to Croke Park.
“I suppose after the Donegal game we sort of hit the reset. We had six weeks and there was no hangover as such from the game.
“We just trained really hard for a couple of weeks after it. These are the games that we want to play in, we all want to play in the big games and they don’t come much bigger than this.
“Naturally, we were disappointed about how we performed [against Donegal]. But the time gave us a good chance for reflection, everyone knows you take more from defeats and more learnings and we have been lucky enough we got six weeks to try and put those learnings into practice.”
Criticised in the aftermath of the Donegal game for their perceived failure in overcoming stressful periods in big Championship matches, O’Neill firmly rejected the notion and said they simply weren’t clinical enough during their periods of ascendancy.
“I don’t think it is fair. If you look back at the game, we had more than enough chances to win two games and that is on us as players that we didn’t execute those plans. A lot of work has gone on to fix that in the meantime.”
Niall Grimley (neck) and Ciaran Mackin (eye) will miss Sunday’s Championship showdown due to injury, while TJ Kelly is a major doubt.
O’Neill, however, is fully fit again and is fancied to win back his place in Kieran McGeeney’s starting line-up.
