The loss to Donegal changed the course of Armagh’s season. No, not that defeat, the other one.
The Ulster final appeared to be a fork-in-the-road moment for Armagh but it was in the moments after the Division Two league decider when the Orchard County footballers chose a different way forward.
Donegal won that league final 0-15 to 0-14 in Croke Park at the end of March. With the Ulster SFC throwing in just one week later, few paid much heed to the fallout from a Division Two league game as both teams had already secured promotion.
But as the Dublin and Derry players took to the field for the Division One final that afternoon, the Armagh team closed the circle within their dressingroom and made a commitment.
“I think the decisive game was the league final here,” says Stefan “Soupy” Campbell. “We sat in those changing rooms after a one-point defeat and we made the promise to ourselves, we huddled up, and said we are not going to lose another game in Croke Park this year.
“The goal was to get back to Croke Park for the All-Ireland quarter-finals, and once we got here, we knew we were coming back with the aim to lift Sam.
“We made a promise that day that once we came back to Croke Park we were going to win three games back to back and lift Sam.”
They returned to Croke Park in late June, beating Roscommon in a quarter-final, before victories over Kerry and ultimately Galway.
Those three games formed the last hurdles along the way to a destination Kieran McGeeney always believed his team would reach. Indeed, McGeeney had told Campbell many years earlier this was how it would all play out.
“I’ve known him a long time, he came to the club maybe nine or 10 years ago to present me with a player-of-the-year award and he told me that night that I was going to win Sam Maguire,” recalls Campbell.
“I’ll be forever indebted to him, because as Aidan [Forker] said up on the steps we couldn’t have done it without him, no way.”
Campbell’s willingness to play the role of impact replacement this season cannot have been easy, but it proved to be a crucial part in Armagh’s game plan. Campbell made massive contributions all summer – including last Sunday when he squared the ball for Aaron McKay’s momentum-swinging goal.
“I actually thought it was Rian coming in,” he smiles, seemingly as surprised as the rest of us to see Armagh’s full-back McKay palming the ball to the back of the Galway net.
But McGeeney convinced Campbell to embrace the impact role, a finisher rather than a sub.
“When he’s telling you our best chance of winning is coming down the stretch, you have got to believe him.”
Belief, that has been a key ingredient in Armagh’s recipe for winning their second Sam Maguire title.
“I just feel grateful to be part of this group, grateful this management team believed in us before we did,” adds Campbell. “Geezer has been telling us for years we will be climbing the steps one day, but especially since 2019, when a deeper panel started to come and nobody was leaving the group.
“We had that consistency, Geezer was beating that drum, and then Star [Kieran Donaghy] came in and said he wasn’t coming down the road for the craic.”
The former Kerry player echoed McGeeney’s sentiments that there was something special within the Armagh dressingroom.
“I said it four years ago, there is an All-Ireland in here if we can get all the pieces working,” says Donaghy.
The squad’s success has now planted the seed for the next generation of Armagh footballers. Just as 2002 inspired kids back then, so too will this latest All-Ireland triumph.
“I suppose going back with us, all us guys born 1991 and 1992, that ‘02 team were our heroes,” explains Campbell. “For me, I came from more of a soccer background and I had only been to the odd game between 2000-02.
“I was obviously at the final, but the success those guys had in that 10-year period [seven Ulster titles between 1999-08] made me want to emulate them one day.
“Let’s hope that [Sunday] lives in the memory for all those kids and I’ll be coming back to watch them in the future – though hopefully it doesn’t take 22 or 23 years.”
