When Armagh won their first All-Ireland, former county captain Jarlath Burns was sitting in the BBC studio at Croke Park. Footage of him as the full-time whistle sounded showed him like some industrial saboteur pulling wires out of everywhere to free himself from the broadcasting apparatus and racing off to be on the field with the orange masses.
Yesterday, the same man was sitting in the Árd Comhairle box as president of the GAA and the same abandon wasn’t possible. As consolation he got to present the Sam Maguire to Armagh captain Aidan Forker and the team, including Burns’s own son, Jarly Óg.
It was appropriate that an Armagh man was there to perform the formalities because few champions had been as doubted and written off on their path to All-Ireland triumph – which one of their own would appreciate.
By the start of this year, Armagh had exited their most recent three championships after penalty shoot-outs. A fourth followed with last May’s Ulster final against Donegal despite a high level of penalty proficiency. They had also lost the Division Two final to the same opponents.
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Armagh had become a team that were hard to beat but even harder to lose to. Many previewing the championship held reservations about predicting success for a county that appeared to resist it.
When in last year’s quarter-final against Monaghan, Armagh had the initiative but didn’t kick on when the match was theirs for the taking.
Nonetheless when they met Galway in Sligo for the last of the All-Ireland group matches, it was their opponents, who coughed up a five-point lead and Kieran McGeeney, Armagh’s long-suffering manager, responded indignantly to the suggestion that they had got out of jail.
“No matter what I do!”
He was referring to having lost a four-point lead in the Ulster final and being roundly blamed for that and yet here he was making up a five-point deficit and still at fault for allowing that deficit to mount.
“You’re going to have to make up your mind. It can’t be both!”
From then on, Armagh’s season achieved lift-off as if the manager’s stance in confronting the double-standard fates had forced them to relent.
They first had to surmount the hurdle of an All-Ireland quarter-final, which they did against Roscommon to reach a first semi-final in 19 years. There awaited Kerry, favourites for the now Dublin-less All-Ireland championship.
In truth, Armagh could have been becalmed by the time they launched the comeback but the furious energies unlocked by getting a second chance in that match, drove them all the way – arguably to the All-Ireland.
For McGeeney, his entire intercounty managerial career has been one of close margins, generally ending in disappointment, including some good days but rarely in quick succession.
He is in his 10th year as Armagh manager and All-Ireland quarter-finals had been the high-water mark.
On Sunday, his team had to confront adversity. Top forward Conor Turbitt, being talked about as Footballer of the Year, had an afternoon to forget and was replaced; the team’s most influential forward, Rory Grugan, had to be wheeled off in the 51st minute, injured.
On they went, their defensive formation holding solid and Ben Crealey heroic at centrefield. Their sheer implacability appeared to spook Galway, who were unable to chase down the narrowest of margins once Aaron McKay’s goal had given Armagh the edge.
But had there ever been a stage in those 10 years when McGeeney was inclined no longer to believe and to question his continuing involvement.
“Not really. When you’re a player … I suppose time is a commodity not afforded to most people these days, and I’m lucky with these lads here. I’d ask them every year – or every week – whether they still wanted me about. They tell me a few different things!
“But in the whole, they did. And once Armagh wanted me about, that was an easy choice. I know what it takes in a small county and a small club to try and win something. It takes a while; it takes a lot of people.”
And a lot of perseverance typified by as resilient a competitor since Sisyphus chased the runaway boulder to the bottom off the hill and sighed before putting his shoulder behind it, looked up and tried again.
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