Ulster Senior Football Championship semi-final: Armagh 4-11 Down 0-12
THE demise of the Ulster Championship has been greatly exaggerated. The match-day traffic snarled as it has always done along the narrow stretches of road leading to Clones yesterday and where Armagh will return again in two weeks’ time to contest their first Ulster final since 2008.
Every chance he’s got during this provincial series, Armagh assistant Ciaran McKeever has talked up the new “Super 16s” and almost dismissed the Anglo-Celt.
Surrounded by reporters at the back end of the Gerry Arthurs Stand, McKeever wore a roguish grin.
It was all a convenient ruse by the Cullyhanna man with Armagh having negotiated their way past Antrim, Cavan and Down to face defending champions Derry on Sunday May 14.
“Ah, I was giving youse the old Jose Mourinho line! You’d be pretty foolish to believe me at times!” McKeever said, who was a key player in Peter McDonnell’s Armagh team that last won Ulster.
“It’s an Ulster final and finals are what you want to win. We’d love nothing more than this group of players to get their hands on an Ulster medal.
“We’ll fire all our eggs in the one basket and hopefully get these boys something that they deserve - the likes of Rory Grugan Stephen Sheridan, Aidan Forker.
“They’ve taken their fair share of criticism down through the years for not winning an Ulster Championship. We’re just delighted for those boys to have the opportunity of playing in an Ulster final for all the hard work but we know the task that lies ahead of us.”
All talk of the “Super 16s” has been postponed in Armagh.
Goals have been hard to come by for Kieran McGeeney’s Armagh side in 2023 – but they found their radar in yesterday’s one-sided semi-final against Down.
Andrew Murnin and Shane McPartlan raised green flags in the first half for the Orchard men before Ciaran Mackin and Rian O’Neill completed the rout in the second half.
“I’ve been involved in Down club football for four years,” said McKeever, “so I would have had good insight to all those players.
“They love a counter-attacking game, they love getting behind teams and scoring goals. We knew if we didn’t cough up any goals, they’d struggle to break us down and would struggle to kick points from distance. They got a few frees that kept them within touching distance, but from a defensive point of view the boys should be happy.”
Yesterday’s semi-final clash was a classic case of a Division One team versus a Division Three team. It’s a gap that can rarely be bridged.
Armagh are miles further down the track than this Down team who, as Conor Laverty acknowledged, are only at the start of their journey.
“We knew coming into the game it was going to be a step up and Armagh are well down the road in their journey,” said Laverty.
“I think Kieran has been there nine years now and we are only starting out on our journey. We came here with a lot of belief that we could hurt them and our pace could hurt them and I felt at times we did. But, listen, their experience and know-how and they also got the big scores at vital stages of the game and then they were able to keep us at arms’ length, really.”
The Kilcoo man insisted that Down would give the Tailteann Cup a good lash – and that it's important that they just don’t “fall away” having made solid progress in 2023.
“There’s a good atmosphere in the group, a good bond a serious togetherness so we’ll regroup prepare well.
“And, listen, it is very important we don’t just fall away. I think we’ve made great strides, there’s a good buzz back. It’ll be very disappointing to take our foot off the gas and not give everything you have in the competition.”
