After conceding four goals to Donegal six weeks earlier, they were hit for another three against Armagh back at Celtic Park in this All-Ireland SFC second round. The degree of similarity, and vulnerability, between them all was striking and ultimately demoralising.
You could see it in the body language of the players as they played out the last few minutes, the sense of deja vu all too apparent in what must be the worst championship collapse in recent memory from a team of their standing. They were league champions just nine weeks ago, beating Dublin on penalties after extra-time with a performance full of adventure and attacking flair. They were being openly touted, and rightly so, as the strongest challengers to the Dublin/Kerry duopoly.
But that adventure and attacking flair comes at a price if you don’t mind the ball and opponents, led by Donegal initially, are now sensing fragility. That Derry haven’t absorbed the lessons is a collective indictment of their strategy.
For the first two goals, Conor McCluskey, under pressure from Tiernan Kelly, and Brendan Rogers, under no pressure, lost possession. Both have been among Derry’s most assured hands during their surge over the last three seasons.
Because of their commitment to attack, defence has become a high-wire act and for both goals they were wide open at the back. Armagh poured through and Ross McQuillan and Conor Turbitt, picked out by Aaron McKay, were on the end both times to apply the finish. In Turbitt’s case he had support around him yet still had time to walk the ball around the Derry goalkeeper Odhrán Lynch on 21 minutes.
The goals gave Armagh a 2-8 to 0-6 interval lead, out of sight with a team in such a crisis of confidence now in pursuit.
In truth, Armagh should have scored five goals and could have scored seven, all through counter-attacks. Barry McCambridge and Oisín Conaty had options when they took points at the end of both halves.
Rian O’Neill got a third goal on 54 minutes when he got in behind to gather a pass engineered superbly by McQuillan who had claimed one of their own kick-outs.
Before that, corner-back McCambridge should have goaled on 41 minutes when they created a five-on-three overlap while Conaty hit the crossbar when he raced on to a touch by Ben Crealey off another Armagh kick-out in the seventh minute.
Derry manager Mickey Harte, at a loss to explain their collapse since the league final, suggested they had “gifted them the key to the door”. But they left the windows open too just in case.
Armagh’s Conor Turbitt of Armagh scores his side’s second goal, past Derry goalkeeper Odhran Lynch. Photo: Seb Daly/Sportsfile
Harte accepted their All-Ireland prospects were at “long odds” but a format that allows such margin of error will now come under the spotlight if Derry advance to the play-offs on the back of three defeats. Hard to believe but win against Westmeath next time out and they’ll be on the road for a second/third place play-off. For Armagh, this was a ruthless and very significant performance, their best yet in 10 years of Kieran McGeeney’s stewardship.
They did so as bad news continued to pour in. Conor O’Neill had already endured a season-ending injury when it was confirmed that Ciarán Mackin was gone too with a cruciate ligament injury, just two weeks after his sister Aimee had suffered the same injury. Andrew Murnin was also missing here.
But their resources are clearly deep. Niall Grimley filled in at midfield impressively while Connaire Mackin went hard until a late injury forced him off. Off the bench, Oisín O’Neill and Shane McPartlan scored points while McQuillan, a blood substitute for Peter McGrane for most of the game, got that goal and set up another. Their recovery from their Ulster final loss on penalties has been swift and they approach the final round in a better vein of form than 12 months ago.
Here, they attacked the Derry kick-out with menace, winning five from which they scored four points including their first two after half-time through Grimley and Turbitt in response to Derry’s three unanswered points.
Those Derry scores reduced the gap to five points and may have unnerved an Armagh team that didn’t manage a four-point lead well against Donegal. But this time their energy to keep hitting counter-attacks in numbers was immense.
At the centre of it was Rian O’Neill, back after missing the Westmeath tie.
Conaty has been their find of the season with his pace and directness and finished with two points, in addition to a number of key incisions, while inside Turbitt picked off 1-4, including one pointed free.
Kelly played a big role too, scoring two points and putting in some important tackles, the one on McCluskey for the first goal standing out. What will please them most is how ruthless they were, unlike the Ulster final. For McGeeney, consistency of performance is what he continues to strive for at this time of year.
“We played just as well against Donegal in terms of getting scores and stuff like that there, but we got a couple of goals and that gave us a bit of a cushion,” he said.
McGeeney said the players were able to block out the “noise” after the Ulster final.
“It’s trying to get people to stop listening to the noise. I said the last time, you can’t say there were two or evenly matched teams, one was as good as the other. That doesn’t sell and so the noise that they would hear, whether it’s [about] me or putting on different subs and all that sort of stuff, ‘you can’t do this you can’t do that’, it’s a very personal thing, for themselves, to be able to block that out because you hear it at home, you hear it in the street.”
For Derry, the state of chaos was compounded when Ciarán McFaul was red-carded just 17 minutes after coming on for picking up a black card for a foul on Joe McElroy when he was already on a yellow. You could see it coming.
Already without Gareth McKinless who has a two-game suspension, indiscipline is now kicking in too. On top of their injuries and a clear lack of depth that led to just two substitutes being used, they’ve got themselves in a right mess. much of it of the Oak Leaf County’s own making.
SCORERS – Armagh: C Turbitt 1-4 (0-1m, 0-1f); R O’Neill 1-1; R McQuillan 1-0; T Kelly, O Conaty 0-2 each; O O’Neill, B McCambridge, A Forker, R Grugan, S McPartlan, B Crealey (m), A Nugent (f), N Grimley 0-1 each. Derry: S McGuigan 0-7 (4f); C Glass 0-3 (1m); E Doherty, L Murray, P Cassidy, D Baker, E Bradley 0-1 each.
ARMAGH: B Hughes 7; A McKay 7, B McCambridge 7, P McGrane 6; C Mackin 7, T Kelly 8, A Forker 7; N Grimley 7, B Crealey 8; S Campbell 6, R O’Neill 8, J McElroy 7; R Grugan 7, C Turbitt 8, O Conaty 8. Subs: R McQuillan 8 for McGrane (blood, 10-62), J Duffy 6 for Campbell (50), G McCabe 6 for Forker ((57), O O’Neill for R O’Neill (57), S McPartlan for Crealey (65), A Nugent for Turbitt (67), D McMullan for Mackin (74).
DERRY: O Lynch 6; D Baker 7, C McKaigue 6, C McCluskey 6; C Doherty 6, B Rogers 6, D Gilmore 6; C Glass 7, E Bradley 7; E Doherty 7, E Mulholland 5, P Cassidy 6; N Toner 5, S McGuigan 7, L Murray 6. Subs: C McFaul 4 for Bradley (42), D Cassidy 5 for Toner (46).
REF: D Coldrick (Meath).
