All-Ireland SFC quarter-final: Armagh 0-14 Monaghan 0-14 (Monaghan won 9-8 on penalties)
SOMETIMES there are simply no words.
Not for the enduring magic of Conor McManus and Gaelic football’s most celebrated band of 30-somethings. Not for Monaghan’s brutal belligerence every time adversity thrusts its face into theirs.
Not for Callum Cumiskey, crumpled in front of the Davin End, wishing the orange jersey would swallow him whole as cruel realisation sets in that having a second penalty saved by Rory Beggan signalled the end.
And not for Armagh, succumbing to Championship shoot-out defeat number three in the space of just over 12 months, the Farney rubbing salt into open wounds from Galway at the same stage last year and Ulster final devastation against Derry seven short weeks ago.
Kieran McGeeney - the totemic leader as the Orchard County pulled up at the promised land 21 summers ago - has seldom seemed so small as in those moments that followed Saturday night’s All-Ireland exit.
He is now the longest-serving serving manager in the country following Colm Collins’s departure from Clare last month, but few of the gut punches suffered during those nine years will have stung like this.
Hidden beneath a black baseball cap, voice barely audible even from a few yards away, the Mullaghbawn man must have wished he was anywhere other than facing questions about the latest one that got away, third time unlucky, and the most painful visit yet to their house of penalty pain.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s very tough now,” he said, staring down at the desk below, “that’s sport, isn’t it? Cruel…
“You feel for them - they’re a great bunch, they work hard. It was the same in the Ulster final. A few slim things go against them, and they’re finding it hard to get a break.”
Barely a word was spoken as Orchard players and staff crossed the concourse outside the changing rooms deep in the bowels of Croke Park, bags solemnly set into the undercarriage of the bus as another journey ends before its intended destination.
And yet it was right there for them, just as it has been so many times before.
When Rian O’Neill punched the air after splitting the posts two minutes into added time at the end of extra-time, the Orchard had one foot firmly planted in a first All-Ireland semi-final since 2005. All they had to do was see it out.
But there’s a reason the know-how to kill games off is the secret sauce sought by all who crave a place at the top table of elite sport. Armagh’s search for the recipe goes on.
With neither able to get their noses in front by more than a point across 90-plus minutes, Monaghan knew they needed just one more chance. It has been the mantra since the business end of their season, from Castlebar on the last day of the League to Ryan O’Toole’s winning goal in Omagh, the evergreen Karl O’Connell popping up with the late leveller in Derry to Conor McCarthy’s rapid burst that broke Kildare hearts at the death.
The Farney dogs of war are built for days like these; no cause ever lost. And, eventually, opportunity knocked.
When O’Connell was hauled to the ground by Shane McPartlan just inside the 65 metre line, Rory Beggan weighed up his options. The message came from the line to go short, Miceal Bannigan driving forward before laying off to McManus.
The 35-year-old used every bit of his big game experience to force himself 180 around Rory Grugan before cutting off to the right. The Ballymacnab man was the wrong side now, his body position leaving him exposed as a tangle of legs granted Monaghan potential reprieve rather than forcing McManus into a waiting wall of Orchard bodies.
There is nobody else Vinny Corey would have wanted on that free than the man he hailed as “Monaghan’s greatest ever clutch player”. No longer the guiding star from the start, his has changed but the ability to mould and shape a game’s outcome remains.
An underwhelming game laboured back and forth for most of the night, the brilliant Aidan Forker and Andy Murnin carrying the fight for Armagh while Gary Mohan, Conor McCarthy and Jack McCarron kept the Farney at close quarters.
An extremely harsh black card for sub Sean Jones left Monaghan down a man in the dying moments of a frenetic finish to normal time, and it looked like Armagh might have the chance to win it when Mohan careered into Conor Turbitt deep in added time.
The Truagh man’s shoulder to shoulder bump had to be on the money, and it was.
McGeeney’s shoulder left a mark too, nudging into Stephen O’Hanlon as he walked from the field after remonstrating with referee Conor Lane. The Armagh boss was unhappy with Lane’s time-keeping, while questions were asked about an apparent Hawkeye malfunction that may have denied Bannigan a second half point, temperatures suddenly soaring as the counties headed for the tunnel.
McManus’s arrival on 40 minutes had helped nudge the dial ever so slightly in the Farney’s direction, the Clontibret man bringing the composure and killer instinct Monaghan missed. While Croke Park held its collective breath, his free with the last kick was never going anywhere but between the posts.
When penalties came, both were buried in unerring fashion - the first high to Ethan Rafferty’s right, the second given air to the other side; his, and Monaghan’s, coolness made all the more remarkable by the absence of dedicated practice.
“We we were saying the last two weeks we would practice them but, listen, I think sometimes it can do more harm than good,” said Corey.
“You can’t replicate that orange crowd and the jeering and cheering behind the goal. We knew the talent we had, we knew the kind of place kickers we had and we made sure they were on the pitch at the end of the game, and they tucked them away.”
Mohan redeemed himself after seeing his effort saved in the shoot-out’s first round, heaping all the pressure onto Cumiskey’s shoulders in sudden death - with a leap to the left Beggan emerged the hero. McManus showed his class one last time, breaking away from the celebrations to console the Crossmaglen man.
The Farney story goes on. A first All-Ireland semi-final since 2018 awaits, Monaghan’s remarkable Championship campaign continuing in the most Monaghan fashion. If ever a team was cut out of a manager’s image, it is them.
“We targeted this stage of the year from the very start,” said Corey.
“We raced the boys very lightly at the start of the League. We knew with this new format we’d be in a group stage and we’d get out of the group stage, and the target was to make an All-Ireland semi-final with a chance of beating a top three team to get us into an All-Ireland for the first time since 1930.
“That has been the aim from the start of the year, so we knew the boys fitness-wise should be peaking towards now. These boys go to the end, it’s built in them. It’s been there all there, you saw it again today.”
Armagh: E Rafferty; P Burns, A Forker (0-2); Aaron McKay; J Óg Burns, G McCabe, C O’Neill; B Crealey, C Mackin; J Duffy, S Campbell, J McElroy; R Grugan (0-2, 0-1 free); R O’Neill (0-6, 0-4 frees, 0-1 45), A Murnin (0-3, 0-1 mark). Subs: C Turbitt for Crealey (46), C Cumiskey for McCabe (51), J Hall for Duffy (54), R McQuillan (0-1) for Hall (65), S McPartlan for McElroy (69), B McCambridge for Forker (74), J Kieran for Burns (ET, HT), O Conaty for Campbell (90)
Yellow cards: B Crealey (10), A Forker (17), J McElroy (37), G McCabe (42)
Monaghan: R Beggan; K Duffy, K Lavelle; R Wylie; K O’Connell, C Boyle, C McCarthy (0-3); G Mohan (0-3), D Hughes; S O’Hanlon, M Bannigan (0-2), D Ward; R McAnespie; K Gallagher, J McCarron (0-2, 0-1 free). Subs: C McManus (0-4, 0-3 frees) for Gallagher (40), R O’Toole for Lavelle (53), S Jones for McCarron (56), S Carey for McAnespie (61), K Hughes for Ward (67), Lavelle for Carey (FT), Carey for Boyle (ET, HT), C Lennon for McCarthy (ET, HT), McCarron for O’Connell (84), O’Connell for O’Hanlon (89)
Black card: S Jones (71-81)
Yellow cards: C McCarthy (37), C Lennon (90+5)
Ref: C Lane (Cork)
Att: 57,570
