Armagh have performed well in penalty shootouts but have been cursed by bad luck, according to former defender Enda McNulty.
Of the seven penalty shootouts that have occurred in the championship since the first in 2022, Armagh have, remarkably, been on the losing side in four of them.
Kieran McGeeney’s team have been eliminated from the championship via penalties for the past two years, losing successive quarter-final shootouts to Galway in 2022 and Monaghan in 2023.
Not only that but they’ve lost the past two Ulster finals via shootouts, to Derry in 2023 and to Donegal this summer. Indeed, Armagh’s only defeat in normal time in championship in the past two seasons came in the round robin loss to Tyrone in Omagh last year.
While Armagh’s penalty-taking in their first two shootouts was poor, with only one from three converted against Galway in the ’22 quarter-final and one from four scored in the ’23 Ulster final, their stats have improved substantially since then, with 13 from 16 scored across the shootouts against Monaghan and Donegal.
However, their opponents have converted 22 of 24 penalties against them across the four shootouts, with only Gary Mohan of Monaghan and Derry’s Paul Cassidy failing to score.
Losing four shootouts in the space of three championship seasons is an extraordinary stat by any measure but former corner back – and professional performance coach – Enda McNulty feels there’s a large dollop of luck involved here.
“I think if you look at their performance, they’ve performed pretty well in them all,” McNulty said on RTÉ Sport.
“It’s not as if they kicked one out of five, it’s probably five out of six.
“In some cases it has been downright unlucky. I never like to talk about luck, because I spend my whole life trying to coach performance, but I think this team has been incredibly unlucky.”
Looking beyond simple misfortune, McNulty, who in the past has worked with Brian O’Driscoll among others, has suggested that Armagh could borrow from the example of the England football team – not traditionally a model to follow where penalty shootouts are concerned.
Under Gareth Southgate, England have largely cured their penalty shootout hoodoo – the Euro 2020 final aside – winning shootouts against Colombia in 2018 and Switzerland in the current Euros.
He in particular cited the tactics of goalkeeper Jordan Pickford who, in addition to benefiting from exhaustive research on likely opposition penalty takers, has adopted the habit of stalling slightly to make the kicker wait longer.
“I also think they could maybe be a little more streetwise.
“Going back to the English soccer scenario, what did [Jordan] Pickford do? He made the penalty kicker have to think for 30 seconds.
“Maybe a bit of a blend of unlucky and [needing to be] a bit more streetwise. And trying to win the normal time, rather than worrying about what happens in a lottery.
“It’s not one thing, it’s multi-factorial.”
“I never like to talk about luck, because I spend my whole life trying to coach performance, but I think this team has been incredibly unlucky”
McNulty was a member of the Armagh full-back line throughout the late 1990s and 2000s, winning seven Ulster titles between 1999 and 2008 and a famous All-Ireland victory in 2002, a tally with which he admitted he’s not entirely content.
He sees the current Armagh team, under the stewardship of his former captain, as being on a similar trajectory, even if their Ulster title cupboard is bare.
“I joined the squad in ’97, Kieran McGeeney I think joined the squad in ’91. Armagh won the All-Ireland in 2002, so you don’t need to be a mathematician to figure out, it took Armagh from ’91 to ’02 to create the cultural foundation stones to become the number one team in the country.
“If you look at the current team’s trajectory, a lot of those players are involved for seven, eight, nine, 10 years. Soupy Campbell joined the squad when I was still playing with Armagh. I’m talking about culture.
“In about 97 or 98 I remember doing a session in somewhere in Belfast, in Barnets Park….training in the middle of the hills. I was being physically sick because the training was so hard.
“Brian McAlinden screamed and shouted at me, vomit and run on. There was no okay, are you feeling alright. It was building incredible mental toughness, resilience, and grit. That was done relentlessly, 97, 98, 99, 2000, 2001.
“Joe (Kernan) came in for 2002, he clearly raised the bar in other aspects of professionalism. In terms of creating culture and character I couldn’t overstate the importance of Brian McAlinden.
“I think it is a similar journey (for the current team). I think this is a group that has many more attributes that we didn’t have.
“By the way, I hope they become a far better team than we ever were. We won one All-Ireland, I hope this team goes on to win a few All-Irelands.
“I wouldn’t like to compare them like for like, it would be like comparing apples in the orchard with pears in the orchard. What I know for sure is that this is a special group of players.
“Yes, they are very resilient. I could do a vigorous study, test and assess who is the most resilient, but I think we will know on Saturday, who is more resilient between Kerry and Armagh. I think this is going to be an incredibly intriguing battle from that point of view.
“Kerry are one of the greatest teams of the modern era, there is no doubt about that. I hope this Armagh team are good enough to beat them at the weekend, it is a 50-50 battle.”
McNulty has a personal interest in both matches this Saturday, with his brother and former All-Ireland winning teammate Justin in charge of Laois in the Tailteann Cup decider against Down beforehand.
“I’m excited for the Laois fans, players, and coaches. I think it is a pretty special weekend for everybody involved with all of the counties, whether it is the Tailteann Cup or the All-Ireland series. It is exciting.
“I talk to him regularly about it. He is very open, he is very hungry to learn, he certainly has a growth mindset. So, I talk to him pretty regularly, absolutely. Every family occasion, my little son was christened at the weekend, so even at the christening there would have been conversations about Laois and Armagh.
“It is part of any GAA family. Certainly, in my family, from memory there was always Gaelic football discussed at the kitchen table. I can’t remember there ever being a Sunday dinner and Gaelic games not being discussed. My sisters, Emer and Sarah, to be honest, they were disgusted by that for many years, and rightly so.”
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