Armagh gave the template but have we the tools?

Agent Orange. No, not Trump nor the forthcoming loyalist drum banging marching season, but ironically from big apple country, the orchards of Armagh. After our Connacht final loss to Galway the Mayo manager referenced Armagh’s turnaround last season after losing both the Division Two and Ulster SFC finals heartbreakingly on penalties. It’s territory Mayo understands. Kevin McStay chose Armagh as a template forward for us and quickly the media during the week picked up that theme. Could Mayo do an Armagh on it and resurrect what could be a cataclysmic season for many?

Let’s look at last year’s All-Ireland winners and their manager Kieran McGeeney. The 2024 final wasn’t vintage but Armagh didn’t care, nor did Tyrone, Meath, Cork, Derry or Donegal who picked up titles in the fallow folds of Dublin and Kerry downtime. After last Saturday, it remains that Armagh’s last Ulster title was back in 2008 – Aidan O’Shea was still a minor then.

In 2015, McGeeney was appointed manager. Previously he managed Kildare from 2007 to 2013. The media saw that as a successful era for Kildare despite them not winning a Leinster title. They reached five All-Ireland quarter-finals. McGeeney’s reign at Kildare was of a taciturn man, driven by his own template as a player – hard work, sweat and meticulous planning. Kildare, however, weren’t Armagh with its Crossmaglen platform and Joe Kernan drive.

Like Alan Curbishley’s overachieving at Charlton Athletic in their Premier League years, the Lilywhite natives saw McGeeney’s tenure as a poor reflection of their perceived status. The last few seasons have shown their true level. McGeeney had kept them honest and relevant. It wasn’t enough for the fickle clubs though.

Since his takeover in ’15, Armagh, like I stated, haven’t won a single provincial title. They even dropped into Division Three for a season. Their football, generally speaking, had been hard on the eye. Confrontational and in your face. Playing in Ulster, where they have opponents like Donegal, Tyrone, Derry and Monaghan with a sleeping Down nearby, keeps a team alert and suspicious. Rivalry up there is real and deep. In truth, from 2015 to 2023 Armagh were hard to play against and hard to play with. McGeeney himself came under club pressure after the 2023 season but the county board block vote saw him comfortably survive. The rest is history.

In my opinion we are the polar opposite of Armagh. In rock and roll terms we are more AC/DC to their Deep Purple. We are fast and furious or nothing. They stick to the set list, no improv, no meandering guitar solos, all carefully set pieced. Boring but a means to an end. Let’s unpack that. For Armagh to play like they do, a mirror image of McGeeney’s own playing days, strong, solid, meat, spuds and two veg, the players have to buy into his ethic, his recipe. No buts, no play. The other thing about McGeeney is that it is his team. He might have a support cast (even Star Donaghy, the ex-Kerry great has been quietly subsumed into the Armagh wallpaper) but it’s Geezer’s team, screened from a curious public. End of.

So, we see a team formed from the granite of the man made from that rock. And yet it took nine seasons of average returns for his team to nplant the flag on Everest. What bound them together that length? Since 2015, we have had four managerial teams in Mayo. Galway have had Mulholland, Walsh and Joyce, Kerry have had Fitzmaurice, Keane and O’Connor. Clearly McGeeney commands, nay, demands respect. Clearly the players buy into it. Mostly it hasn’t been pretty but mostly they couldn’t have given a f*** what anyone else thought. How many teams, how many managers can inspire that loyalty? How many county boards have the cojones to back a boy like that?

So Kevin McStay reached for the orange card, Armagh did it last season, why not us this season? And it’s a fair question to ask. Why not? A gnawing part of me thinks Kevin picked the wrong template. A gnawing part of me thinks he would have been better off saying nothing other than we now dust ourselves down for the group stage. Picking Armagh was picking a closing docket too. If we fail, we fail having chosen Armagh as the map forward. Then we aren’t Armagh, merely Mayo… again. If we win of course, I’m an idiot. So how fare we?

The match against Cavan is a compulsory insurance purchase. Lose that and we are at the mercy of how two Ulster behemoths, Donegal and Tyrone, wish to travel. No matter how we look at it, we aren’t Armagh, nor would I want us to be. I’d like us to be Mayo. When I contrast the Armagh manager and management team I see one unit, one method and full buy in from the panel. They play the way they do because they’ve been playing that way since 2002. When I look at our team I see a group of lads who seem to have the wrong DNA code fed into their system. A conflicted side, part of them conforming to a plan that seems opaque, to me at least, and part of the players wishing to escape this straitjacket.

I was a strong advocate of Kevin McStay getting the Mayo gig. From his playing days, club management days and even Roscommon days, Kevin played or ran a team that played controlled off-the-cuff football. I know, contradictory, but humour me. He trusted his players to inflict his vision on the pitch, with success most times. Personally, since he took over Mayo, I feel I’m watching a team with a manager that would prefer the chaos brand we have always brought when we have had good players and teams but who seems controlled by a handbrake of coaching that tends towards overload tactical loads on lads reared on the plains of freedom. Am I making sense? Maybe not. But I do know our propensity to make the wrong choice has happened too many times since 2019.

Watching Galway’s key players make key interventions highlighted the paucity of our leaders implementing their will on the Maroon and White. Paul Conroy, 36 next birthday, landed three two pointers. That’s six points. Cillian McDaid scored two points from two lung bursting 45-metre plus runs through our ranks. Sean Kelly scored a similar gut-busting point. That’s three inspirational oxygen boosters in enemy territory. We simply hadn’t that kick. Why?

If we reference Armagh then have we the Armagh package? Do you see us really doing that? Watching the various online and social media forums can be interesting. Certain players are touted as the solution to our problems. I’ve done it myself. Over the years I’ve gone on what I call my gut test to pass judgement on who will or won’t make it. Having seen the arrival of the various Mortimers, Bradys, McDonald, Cillian, Barrett, Boyle, Higgins, Oisín Mullin, Harrison for a few seasons, Vaughan, eventually Andy, I could state simply they had it. I’ve seen other lads and from the off, they simply lack that indefinable je ne sais quoi, and deep down you know they won’t be the solution. The last few seasons has seen us invest heavily in a number of players, good and all as they are, great and all as they are at club and in training, who simply cannot bridge that undefinable gap. It cost us in the Connacht final and has cost us going back a while now.

Armagh won’t permit that, neither will Donegal. Teams like Kerry and Dublin in their pomp won’t allow a manager or management team the time to allow lads to play their way into a side over a number of seasons. It’s do it now or get off the pot. Joyce and Galway are heading that way now. A half-time sub against Mayo didn’t fire on the day and was whipped off. His replacement? Peter Cooke, who controlled the last ten minutes that saw Galway over the line. That’s what ruthless does. That’s what ruthless managers do. High stakes require high rollers.

The summer weather of Connacht final Sunday took me all the way back to July 1968. I was 16, a crowd of 40,000 in MacHale Park minus its mega million stand, the sun high in the sky and Galway our opponents. Much I have forgotten but some I still recall. We were, like the recent Sunday against the same opponents, eight points down at half-time. And like two weeks ago we clawed Galway back, score by score, to the point where we would turn the screw and head for home. Instead we looked down, saw that the safety net was gone and panicked. We missed a handy free to lead, they scored an awful scuffed goal via Mattie McDonagh and we clawed back two points and lost by one. 57 years later, under an equally blue Castlebar sky, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.