Armagh in charge

With reigning champions Tyrone plotting a path through the qualifiers, and with no other county having yet made their mark on the summer, last Sunday’s awesome performance made Armagh warm favorites to win a second All-Ireland title in three years.
Perhaps it was the surroundings, and the enlarged attendance of close to 70,000, but Armagh carried the traditional characteristics of an Ulster decider south of the border and refined them the way only Joe Kernan and his players know how. Donegal came into the game with justifiable confidence after their victory over Tyrone only to be crushed in almost every area of the pitch.
Armagh were intensely physical, uncompromising and unrelenting. However, there were also passages of sublime attacking play that unhinged the Donegal defense. “They were awesome,” said Donegal’s Brendan Devenney, “and I think we made the mistake of living on the glory of our win over Tyrone, and, as a result, there wasn’t enough fire in our bellies.”
With Kieran McGeeney restored to the starting lineup for the first time in the championship, and with Francie Bellew squeezing the life out of Adrian Sweeney and Andy Mallon stifling the threat of Colm McFadden, the contest developed into a master class.
“They showed the passion and the hunger,” said Donegal manager Brian McEniff. “You can’t take away from that performance. Many of our build-ups were too slow despite the fact that we’d been doing fast build-ups in training, and that played into Armagh’s hands.”
Donegal didn’t help themselves when McFadden, Devenney and Sweeney missed important frees, and there was some cruel luck like when McFadden’s shot bounced back off the underside of the crossbar just after the interval, or when Christy Toye went off injured at half time, yet they were sideshows to the main event.
The signs were ominous when Armagh raced into an early four-point lead, and although it seemed as if Donegal had settled, Diarmaid Marsden flicked home the first goal after 27 minutes, and to emphasise the winners’ superiority Marsden and Paddy McKeever quickly hit three points between them to make it 1-9 to 0-4 at the changeover.
A cowed Donegal managed to reduce the deficit to five points before Armagh moved through the gears once more. McKeever combined superbly with Steven McDonnell to sidefoot the second goal, and then the astute McDonnell turned provider again as McConville completed the rout with goal number three.
“You could see how much the players wanted to win the Ulster title,” said Kernan, “but that’s only a means to an end for them. And if people have any sense, they’ll be fully aware that a team can’t turn on a high-quality performance like a tap. There are teams all over the world getting paid huge amounts of money and they can’t be relied on to produce top performances week in, week out.”
Whether Armagh like it or not, they now have to carry the burden of being favorites. The more they pursue their goal of a second All Ireland title, the less what people think about them seems to matter.