All-Ireland SFC final: Armagh 1-11 Galway 0-13
Let today be a lesson. To anyone, anywhere that has a dream in life: with faith, with hard work and belief, anything is possible. Many of us are living our dreams here today. Never give up on what you’re chasing. Up Armaggghhhhhh!
– Aidan Forker
LIKE a faithful old hound, Kieran McGeeney looks up at the pups that he’s moulded into dogs of war. Into All-Ireland champions.
They look back down on him, their own immortality crafted in his image.
Aidan Forker’s voice begins to break. The seat at his manager’s right hand is now his. To have hoisted Sam Maguire, to have taken it to its throne at the head of the bus.
Armagh men dream of it but they seldom believe.
This was a performance dripping in belief. The margin was no more than Joe McElroy’s best Conor Gormley impression after 76 minutes across which the teams looked impossible to steer off any other path than the one to extra-time.
But Armagh were the team with real conviction.
Heading into the 68th minute, they led by two points but it felt like five.
That was a lot down to Galway having spent much of the second half running into brick walls and trying to kick over them, raining misses down on a Hill 16 that belonged like the rest of Croke Park to the sea of orange.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying on Shane Walsh’s part. It’s just not credible to expect two generational All-Ireland performances from one player. He really did give it his best shot, kept on taking on the responsibility, but the longer it went on the expectation Galway placed on him just began to feel cruel.
Damien Comer’s quiet summer continued. That only heightened the significance of the early loss of Rob Finnerty which, despite all his strapping, felt like the one thing they hadn’t really prepared for.
Their attack looked shapeless and imbalanced from the moment he went off.
It also left them without a left-footed free-taker and having dipped into their reserves for Johnny Heaney after ten minutes.
Armagh got to time theirs. The minute Stefan Campbell stood up to get stripped, Sean Kelly did too, even though they didn’t actually end up on each other as was anticipated.
First ball, he sizes John Maher and does what he was put on this earth to do. Runs straight at him, burns him down the line, squares it and there’s Aaron McKay racing in, attacking the ball with conviction – there’s that word again.
From that moment until Sean Hurson finally caved into the deafening chorus of whistles, Armagh never once looked like losing.
There was a brief moment when Galway kicked two scores in a minute to cut the gap to one that you thought it was destined to be the least surprising draw in the history of football.
Step up Joe McElroy. It was Cein D’Arcy driving, probably Galway’s best player, forcing the gap, popping to Conroy. He had to shoot, but McElroy got the long arm out and blocked it.
It was McGeeney that had the last ball in his hands in 2002 and it was fitting in a different way that this game ended with Jarly Óg Burns in possession. GAA presidents have been in office handing trophies to their own county men, even their own clubmen, but never their own son.
McKay’s goal had forced a bit of a game to break out. Until that, it was like trying to get twins to play mindgames on each other. Galway and Armagh have shared everything but the bed for the last three years so why would anybody have been surprised that it was football in a straitjacket.
All the big threats got shut down, the Walshs and Turbitts and Comers and O’Neills.
Walsh and O’Neill produced an unbelievable score apiece just seconds apart in the second half but largely the teams drilled down so far into the other team’s strengths that someone else had to push up through.
That someone was Oisin Conaty.
He had struggled with Dylan McHugh in the group game and so Armagh switched his wing, sending McElroy to tag McHugh and getting to run at Sean Mulkerrin, who’s spent much of his summer sitting as a spare man.
The Tír na nÓg clubman had a poor semi-final but there’s no confidence like townie confidence. He tore into the final like he was born for it. The first half was his. Two points, two more scores at his hand in a half where Armagh’s six matched Galway’s.
Barry McCambridge wouldn’t know much about capping sheep in Lurgan but that’s how he stood at the gate of their defence, showing Shane Walsh down alleys where Aaron McKay stood like a nightclub bouncer.
Anyone that set foot in their ‘D’ was treated like a maximum-security prisoner thinking of a toilet break on day release. They were so alert to anything that Galway did to try and stretch them.
It was the performance it had to be.
The moments that will be remembered range from McElroy’s block to Conaty’s vitality to Niall Grimley’s skyscraping point that his late brother Patrick perhaps lent a hand to as it kissed the post on its way over.
Rian O’Neill’s rousing score in the first half, the week that he and Oisin had buried their uncle Padraig who passed away after falling ill shortly after the semi-final win over Kerry.
McGeeney is the last man up the steps, deferring most of the stage and the silverware’s weight to his wife Maura, the team physio.
Jarlath Burns pops out the back and delivers their son for a family photo before they head downstairs to meet Geezer’s parents at the mouth of the tunnel.
He tries to hang back and remove himself but the cameras keep finding his face that is incapable of disarming the fatherly smile he wears.
It is his day too, for nobody else would taken the abuse he’s taken for ten years and kept coming back. But mostly, it’s the players.
For McGeeney, read Forker.
For McNulty, read McKay.
For McGrane, read Crealey.
Where McConville stood, the nephew Rian now lives.
Armagh football has new heroes.
New names.
New All-Ireland champions.
MATCH STATS
Armagh: B Hughes; P Burns, A McKay (1-0); B McCambridge (0-1); Connaire Mackin, T Kelly (0-1), A Forker (0-1); N Grimley (0-1), B Crealey (0-2); O Conaty (0-3), R O’Neill (0-1), R Grugan, J McElroy; A Murnin, C Turbitt
Subs: S Campbell for Turbitt (45), R McQuillan for Kelly (45), O O’Neill (0-1) for Grugan (51), J Óg Burns (59), J Duffy for Forker (74)
Galway: C Gleeson; J McGrath, S Fitzgerald; D McHugh, J Glynn, L Silke (0-1), S Mulkerrin; P Conroy (0-3), J Maher (0-1); C D’Arcy (0-3), M Tierney, S Walsh (0-2, 0-1 free), C McDaid (0-2); R Finnerty (0-1 free), D Comer
Subs: J Heaney for Finnerty (10), S Kelly for Glynn (45), T Culhane for Comer (65), D O’Flaherty for Tierney (65), K Molloy for Heaney (74)
Referee: S Hurson (Tyrone)
