It’s Sunday night and the voice is a little hoarse. The house is quiet now as sleep arrives at the end of a momentous day. Armagh people are the happiest I’ve ever seen them and it’s the same here in our house. My in-laws are immersed in Armagh football and it’s great to see them so happy. My wife’s uncles Jim and Peter Loughran played in the 1977 All-Ireland final and the entire family are embedded in the Carrickcruppen club, so it has been a great day.
From a Mayo perspective there is a lesson to be learned from Armagh’s victory today: Focus on the positive games, focus on the good days. Because in the build-up to this All-Ireland final no one in Armagh mentioned the 2003 final that they lost against Tyrone. It was not part of any conversation. They’ve just ignored it and focussed instead on the 2002 final against Kerry that they won. Everyone talked about how great 2002 was and how phenomenal it was. We could take learnings from that.
These last two weeks in Armagh were an absolute joy. The energy, the fun and the excitement was fantastic. Everyone had a spring in their step. I kept saying to people that we could do with another week of it. The build-up was so good I was a little bit worried about the team in terms of whether they would be able to get back up to those levels again so quickly after such a crazy game against Kerry and of course they were able to do that which was which was remarkable.
It made me think: Maybe Mayo won’t win an All-Ireland until a new team comes that hasn’t experienced any of that the negative experience of losing because none of those Armagh players this year experienced losing in an All-Ireland final. Granted, they’ve experienced some really tough defeats in Ulster and penalty shootouts and all that sort of stuff so there’s no doubt that played on their mind, but they didn’t have the same negative experience of losing on the biggest day.
On a personal level, I was absolutely delighted obviously to see all my in-laws, my wife, our kids and all her family really happy and we enjoyed a tremendous day. It meant so much.
SIMILARITY
I think there are similarities between the way Armagh supporters are so passionate about their team and their Mayo counterparts. They absolutely love their team. There’s lots of Armagh supporters who plan their getaways around what the Armagh football team is doing and they have that link or connection with the players
Apart from the supporters, I’m very happy for a lot of the players on the Armagh team. We should mention Niall Grimley. To see him score such an important score today and to win an All-Ireland after what he’s gone through this year. It gets you emotional thinking about him losing his brother Patrick, his sister-in-law Ciera and their friend Ciara McElvanna in a car crash last November is tragic.
The family are now raising three kids without their parents and it certainly makes one realise that football is wonderful but not terribly important. Patrick was a big fan of Niall’s and would have absolutely loved being in Croke Park when the final whistle sounded.
OPPORTUNITY
This All-Ireland final was a huge opportunity for Galway and Armagh alike. Normally over the last number of years it was mostly the same participants: When Kerry have gone into an All-Ireland final they’ve generally won it, and it was the same with Dublin. So you just get the feeling that when you play in an All-Ireland final without Kerry or Dublin it’s a real opportunity.
That maybe sticks in the throat of Mayo supporters is that it has happened twice: We’ve played Donegal and Tyrone in All-Ireland finals and didn’t win either of them, which is a tough pill to swallow.
Galway are going to have to deal with that now because this final was a big opportunity for them to beat a team on a similar level. They’ll be really disappointed.
CREDIT TO THE COACH
In some respects this All-Ireland victory is evidence of the sort of person that Armgah manager Kieran McGeeney is. His players all love him. There have been times I’ve watched Kildare, that Kieran managed, and I’ve watched Armagh over the years: I’ve kind of struggled to understand what they were trying to do, and would probably disagree with some of the tactics. But I think he found the right balance with Armagh, he found a team with the right players in it, and it’s working for him.
And his players fully believe and invest in that, and that’s obviously to his credit. He believes in these players, because not all of these Armagh players were the finished article when they walked in the door.
So many of these players have improved dramatically, and that’s with McGeeney’s guidance, and that’s coaching. Today was a victory for coaching, because he has made so many of these players better, and that’s to his credit. And then when it comes to the big games, you need to make the right decisions at the right time, and in these last two big games over the last fortnight, he has done that.
No one can take that away from him: Captain, leader, legend, manager, now to be added to that. But what a man really, and he’s given so much to Armagh football. He puts everything into this, and he got paid back now.
This win will be celebrated long and hard in Armagh. I can only imagine the fun to come over the next few weeks and months.