It's bananas and bonkers but Armagh-Tyrone thriller shows Gaelic football is back
Declan Bogue Reports from Clones
NOBODY QUITE KNOWS where this thing is going and where it might all end up. But Gaelic football is a far easier watch all the same right now.
A personal anecdote. My own Saturday was pretty uneventful. Up early-ish and a half hour on the treadmill to open the pores. Home to sort the various offspring with breakfast and underage coaching, milling about the shop reading the papers off the shelves, home for a relaxed couple of hours before heading to Clones.
And yet after the game, the tracking device that is my watch warned me that my ‘recovery’, which was fixed at 41 hours at 8pm Saturday night, was ‘delayed by high stress.’
I’ve had this yoke a while now. It didn’t give me that kind of feedback over any of the last decade of ‘grimly compelling’ cowpat-fest.
Nostalgia is a bluffer and a cantankerous liar. Every summer of my boyhood took in a few visits to Clones and every game ended in wild abandon. Just like this conclusion.
I mean, take how the game finished, and how lots of games are now going to finish. Armagh drew level. Tyrone had to kick the ball out. And they had to do it within the 20 allotted seconds.
Niall Morgan didn’t connect right with it at all and it went low enough for Jarly Óg Burns to turn it over. Once in Armagh hands, the result came down to their composure.
There are few as composed as Rory Grugan. He made half a dozen assists in this game and it was he that played a risky late ball to Conor Turbitt. But it played Turbitt through, Peter Harte was adjudged to have fouled him and Armagh got the free that Grugan stroked over.
It was the sort of win that Armagh just didn’t get in the past. Back when us laptop warriors called them chokers. But they are winning them now. Surely the mark of champions, we asked manager Kieran McGeeney?
“It’s hard to tell, I don’t think it should have been as tight,” he said.
“You just have to react to whatever punches are thrown. I thought the boys did really well under the circumstances. Stayed really calm, I thought we played well and controlled most of the game.”
Talking of control, there was a moment, when, well, as far as anyone can make out, McGeeney kicked over a sideline flag in frustration and might have passed a remark to referee David Gough. The Meathman jogged out to McGeeney and raised a yellow card with a flourish before giving Darren McCurry a free that he nailed for a two pointer.
If you can keep your head when all around are losing theirs. Surely you owe your boys an apology, Kieran?
“I’ll get fined for it, don’t worry about that, they’ll put me on the spot. But considering, I thought my temper was pretty good on the line,” he said with that half-smile.
And here’s another thing. Remember that last play and how it started with Jarly Óg Burns turning over the kickout? Well, not only did he hurt his AC joint, but momentum took him into the Tyrone half of the field.
That meant Ethan Rafferty couldn’t get up the pitch to join the attack. The Armagh medic found a cure for that, and dragged Burns into his own half to make his prone body the fourth player back. Rafferty then sallied forth, picked up a possession and passed to Grugan on the loop who delivered the hanging ball to Turbitt.
And there’s more about the rules.
21 games had already been played in the provincial championships before the Football Review Committee sent an email midweek offering some clarity around the rules.
The one that drew instant attention was how they reiterated that the ball must be played every four steps. This rule has been ridiculously abused over the past decade. To see it actually applied by Gough here almost felt an affront.
But it makes for a better game of football. The only thing is you wonder how the association neglected enforcing it for so long?
“But referees don’t call the rules, let’s be honest,” said McGeeney. He’s a contrarian. It makes him compelling.
“Four steps? If we counted out four steps every time, if we counted an open hand tackle, this is what happens in these exchanges. Everybody goes back and says, ‘well they were technically right.’
“Everything is a foul in Gaelic football, everything we do is a foul so the referees will always be right. You just have to take that on the chin and accept it and move on.”
As for Tyrone. It was a wonder they made this game so close. From the kicking tee, Niall Morgan was completely off-colour. So much of kickout success depends on what is happening in front of the goalkeeper but Tyrone only retained 16 of their 27 kickouts.
Armagh fouled up just one kickout all day; retaining 23 out of 24.
Tyrone’s ability to collect two pointers made their scoring more economical, having 26 shots to Armagh’s 35.
They have materials to work with and in Eoin McElholm had a player who scared the life out of Armagh when introduced.
“The most pleasing thing about it, was that at the time when we went five or six down, we didn’t throw in the towel, but there was a good fight there. There was good character shown and that’s what our number one aim, is to have that, first of all – that we’ll fight right to the final whistle,” said Tyrone manager Malachy O’Rourke.
“We got that but we’re just obviously disappointed the quality of our play wasn’t what we would have liked. We struggled on both kick-outs a lot of times. So, there’s a lot of things that we need to get much better but at the same time, we got ourselves into a great position to win the game. We’re just disappointed we didn’t quite end it.”
There’s more to say about them on down the line. How they would relish another meeting, but you also feel that they don’t have the backing of their own county people either. A rough guesstimate would have the Armagh support in Clones outnumbering those from Tyrone to the tune of 2 to 1.
They will be around for a while yet.
And finally, for added value or whatever you might call this snippet. At the Ulster Council CCC meeting that granted Antrim the home venue of Corrigan Park for their meeting with Armagh, a footnote of that meeting was that they agreed in principle to a request from the Ulster Ladies Gaelic Football Association to host a double header for the Ulster final.
With Armagh and Donegal the only teams operating at senior level, then Saturday 10 May is the only date suitable, as the Sunday 11 May time slot already agreed with the broadcast companies is a 1.45pm throw-in, which would mean the ladies’ final would have to start at 11.30am.
They could manage the double header on the Saturday, but if the broadcast companies won’t budge on a 6pm throw-in time with the North West 200 affecting BBC and Leinster rugby affecting RTÉ, then the game could be moved to Croke Park if Donegal win later today.
Our hunch around here though is that the Ulster final will remain in Clones on Saturday 10 May.
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