KIERAN McGeeney was “delighted” to see his team hold on by the minimum of margins against near neighbours Down to reach their second successive Ulster final.
The last time the Orchard County reached consecutive provincial deciders, when they actually won three in a row in 2004, 2005 and 2006, ‘Geezer’ was the county captain but their long barren spell without an Anglo Celt continues, for at least another two weeks anyway.
Armagh played out a Titanic tussle with Down, whose gameplan almost worked to perfection, but McGeeney’s men showed that wee bit more experience and composure in the final few minutes with the result still well and truly in the balance.
“We’re back to an Ulster final but as I said it’s very hard to win sometimes, no matter what you do,” said McGeeney referring to the possession-based nature of the encounter.
“I’m just delighted for the boys; they won the game and they’re in an Ulster Final again.
“They’re probably going to go in as underdogs this time which probably is no harm and hopefully, they’ll have a crack at it.
“Although it wasn’t a game for the purists, it was definitely a game for the medics, keeping everybody on the edge of their seats and hearts pumping like mad.
“On days like that, I’ve been through it myself as a player, it’s funny, everybody has these rosy coloured glasses when they look back and we’ve had games like that when we were at the top of our game, when we were All-Ireland champions and losing them against teams that were a division or two below us.
“I’ll take a win in the Ulster Championship any day of the week.”
For long periods it looked like Conor Laverty’s side would have been the ones heading back to Clones in two weeks’ time, especially when their second goal bounced into the net, but Armagh came right back at them.
“They all did well,” added the 2002 All-Ireland winning captain.
“I’m very happy with the way the boys dug the game out. It wasn’t pretty, but we knew that’s the way they were going to come and play.
“A lot of things went against us, balls bounced for Down and own goals and all those sorts of things, and a few frees but I was really delighted with the way we kept our composure under a lot of stress. We’ve lost a lot of those games over the years so to win it was really good.”
Armagh’s substitutes bench made a huge impact towards the end of the game and helped sway the encounter in their favour, with the last three points of the day all coming from the lads with the fresh legs.
Oisin O’Neill captured and pointed a huge mark while Aidan Nugent swung over a score from a tight angle that levelled things up. The opportunity to win the game fell to Jason Duffy and the Cullyhanna man made no mistake in front of the uprights.
“Aidan was just struggling to get his legs, but it was a superb score from Aidan. The boys worked the last score very well.
“It’s funny, of all the people who would have picked to shoot, I didn’t think Jason would have been the one, but it was a great ball in by (Ciaran) Mackin and good hands by Andrew (Murnin) and a nice cut for Jason.
“We had Greg (McCabe) and Ethan (Rafferty) back in the squad today too and hopefully that gets them all back. We’ll be going into it hopefully with a full deck to pick from.”