TIME was running out on Armagh in last year’s Division Three opener against Tipperary when Jamie Clarke produced a magic spell to propel his side to a skin-of-their-teeth win.
But that was last year. Twelve months on, and Armagh are preparing for a campaign in Division Two and for life without Clarke. Without his scores, the Orchard men will look to the likes of Stefan Campbell to step up and the Clann Éireann clubman is confident he can fill the void left by the absence of the Crossmaglen star.
“It is a challenge,” said Campbell, whose 2015 season was disrupted by a series of injuries.
“I’m going to have to step up and I am on long enough now, I played with Jamie for three or four years. He is gone and I am looking at it now that I can be the main man. A lot of younger lads coming through look at me similar to the way I looked to Jamie when I came into the panel.
“If I can perform like Jamie performed in the previous years, I will get a reaction out of those younger lads, so I am really looking forward to the year ahead. Jamie has class that is second to none, but I think it is more about how the opposition see him; they look at Jamie as the marquee forward, so he was often double-marked and it allowed other players to be freed up.
“As a team, we are not going to dwell too much on Jamie’s decision to leave, but I think we have enough players, like Gavin [McParland], who can score goals and you have Andrew Murnin too and other young players and it will be interesting to see how they get on.”
Campbell enjoyed an excellent 2014 for Armagh when he lined out at full-forward and in midfield as the Orchard men recovered from relegation in the league to come within a point of Donegal in a thrilling All-Ireland quarter-final meeting.
“It is that old cliché: I will play where I am picked,” he said.
“If I get into the team playing at 14… ‘Geezer’ [Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney] knows that is where I want to play. But as I have got older, fitter, stronger, I can play various roles and I am happy enough if I am playing nine, like I did last year, and I got on the scoreboard quite a lot. I don’t think it takes away from my game and I still can go out and express myself.
“Even during games, players have to adapt and that is what we are trying to get at. If three forwards are playing inside the whole time, they become easy to mark, so you are trying to take the defender’s eye off the game, hoping for a lapse in concentration and that is where your goals come from. If you line up the same way all the time, it is not really going to benefit you.
“We are all mature enough to know it doesn’t matter who gets into score.”
