Tribesmen will rue lack of killer instinct

No man is an island – unless, of course, his name is Joe McElroy.

As Paul Conroy raced on to Cein D’Arcy’s pass with seconds left in the 2024 All-Ireland decider, he knew the onus was on him to produce the score that would level the game. This was a kick that was 23 years in the making. Conroy will have also known that he only had a split second to both receive the ball and get a shot away – even if it felt like an eternity for every other person in the stadium.

No Armagh player was within five yards of the Galway midfielder, all of them more concerned at the moment with the rampaging D’Arcy who had made a fine run deep into the Armagh half from midfield. But Conroy also knew that, with so much on the line, the Armagh defenders were going to be more than capable of making up that ground quickly.

So, as he took control of the ball, he was already swinging his right leg back and preparing for the ball to land on the tip of his boot.

Every big game demands a big player to claim it as his own, to swivel it in his side’s favour. The best players crave that responsibility, the moment that defines careers and changes lives. When Armagh won their first All-Ireland title in 2002, it was Oisin McConville sneaking a shot in at the near post to reduce the deficit to a single point, swinging the momentum just when Kerry were sailing for home. Four years earlier, it was Michael Donnellan’s famous run. Starting out in his own full-back line, he flamboyantly cut up the centre of Croke Park as he sped through the gears and took the wind out of Kildare sails via a Seán Óg de Paor point. Until that moment, Galway had been struggling to settle in their first All-Ireland final appearance since 1983.

Indeed, when Galway and Armagh met for the first time in the championship during the first year of the qualifiers back in 2001, it was a block from Donnellan in midfield that set up the play that produced Paul Clancy’s winner.

And on Sunday afternoon, the responsibility seemed to be falling to Conroy after 16 years of service to his county. He had been immense all afternoon too, producing three monster scores, including stadium-rocking clinkers at the beginning of both halves. He was the steady hand Galway needed in midfield. Deep into injury time though, his side no longer needed a steady hand. They needed a moment of inspiration.

But McElroy was keen to write his own history, the wing-forward astutely anticipating Conroy’s ability to get a shot away quickly and throwing his body across the famous sod. At that very moment, he was on his own – there were no team members for support, no excuses, no room for error. Only he could ensure Armagh wouldn’t be denied their second ever All-Ireland title. He was an island. Had he moved a second later, Conroy’s shot would’ve split the posts. But the adrenalin kicked in just in time and the Armagh Harps player earned the right to never pay for a pint within his own county again.

The game had been crying out for that defining moment of brilliance, too. For most of the final quarter, it felt like neither side had much interest in actually winning the game. An Aaron McKay goal in the 46th minute handed the initiative to the Ulster men for the first time in the encounter, but they struggled to take advantage of it as Galway increasingly came up short in attack. While Armagh kept a very solid defensive shape, opportunities were still presented to Galway forwards who, more often than not, were unable to place the ball between the uprights.

Galway defenders, who admirably swallowed up Armagh on the counter and forced them into sloppy handling errors, ensured their forwards continued to be presented with scoring opportunities. They simply couldn’t capitalise. It wasn’t until D’Arcy pointed in the 68th minute, after 13 minutes without a score, that Galway began to show their stomach once again. The Tribesmen followed up D’Arcy’s effort with a Cillian McDaid score to bring the game back to a single point and Croke Park prepared to be painted in maroon and white.

However, yet again, the smell of All-Ireland glory filling their nostrils seemed to have an adverse effect on the Connacht side. Kieran McGeeney’s side, on the other hand, eventually began to feed off Galway’s inability to deliver the final blow and went into every tackle like hyenas foraging on powerless gazelles.

The 2022 All-Ireland defeat to Kerry will have cut deep in Galway – as every final defeat does. But the wounds of this year’s loss will take much longer to heal. Galway will have felt like they had done all the difficult work, beating both Dublin and Donegal in the quarter-final and semi-final respectively. They wouldn’t have feared Armagh either, a county that was appearing in their first All-Ireland final since 2003. The Orchard County, Galway will have felt, didn’t have the benefit of an All-Ireland final day experience and all that went with it. But when it mattered, the Connacht champions couldn’t leverage those experiences.

As for Armagh, they’ll know that the first medal is always the most difficult to secure. And they now know that they have the personalities required for the big days, the individuals capable of producing the big moments, the men that can drag a side over the line.

The next chapter of the Armagh story is theirs to write.