FOOTBALL must have seemed so important before he got the news. Life revolved around playing for Armagh. Rest, eat, hydrate, gum shield, gloves, boots… total focus on the Orchard men and the National Football League.
Everything changed on February 27 when a call carried terrible news: Rory Grugan’s father John had fallen to his death in a tragic accident on holiday in France. Suddenly, football didn’t matter any more.
What does a game count for when you stack it up against the tragedy that befell the Grugan family? Nothing, but it has helped Rory somehow. Rest, eat, hydrate, gum shield, gloves, boots… the routine of football and Armagh was an escape from the heartache.
“Football has given a bit of structure for me,” explained 25-year-old Ballymacnab clubman Rory, who’ll wear the number 10 jersey for the Orchard men in Sunday’s Ulster quarter-final against Cavan at Kingspan Breffni Park.
“I’d be the type of person who is glad to have that kind of focus in my life. It’s a nice distraction. County football in itself is such a big part of your week and your life and I find having that routine and structure of going to training and maybe away at the weekend and having different things to focus on is a welcome distraction for me.
“The people around me have been very good, supporting me since then and I certainly have been glad for that camaraderie from my team-mates and the management and how they’ve helped me over the last few months. I’m certainly a lot better off having the football as not, given what’s happened.”
Rory was in the thoughts and prayers of supporters, team-mates and management when Armagh played Fermanagh on February 27. The Armagh county board produced a touching tribute to John, which the Grugan family gathered to watch that night.
“It really meant a lot to us,” said Rory.
“Even the way the game worked out, it was nice to get a late winner, nice the way it all worked out.”
His father John was a staunch Tyrone supporter, who stayed true to his Killyclogher roots despite settling in the heart of the Orchard county. Rory’s progress through to Armagh’s senior ranks meant he had a difficult choice to make back when the Orchard men lined out against his beloved Red Hands’ in an All-Ireland Qualifier in Omagh in July 2014.
“Mummy said he was supporting Tyrone in the first-half and she was cracking up at him because she wanted Armagh to win,” Rory explained with a smile.
“Then, I came on in the second-half and it was like a switch - he wanted me to do well for Armagh. He always said to me: ‘If you’re playing against Tyrone, I’d like you to score six or seven points, but Tyrone to win’.”
It didn’t work out quite like that. Rory scored one point and Armagh won to start an unexpected journey that took them all the way to the All-Ireland quarter-finals. Rory had shown his worth a fortnight earlier when he stepped up to take a long range free in the dying seconds of a tense Ulster semi-final against Monaghan. It was late June and Clones was a sweltering cauldron when he stood over the ball and launched it high into the summer sky and over the bar to earn Armagh a draw.
“That was one of my highlights,” said the teacher who missed last season because he was studying for a PGCE in Liverpool.
“I hadn’t played much Championship football before that, so it was a big moment to score a last minute equaliser. I sort of announced myself at that stage and got a few more games on the way to the All-Ireland quarter-final, but I saw this year coming back in [from studying in Liverpool] as a bigger year again, to kick on and to start and be a starting part of the team rather than a cameo sub.”
Grugan missed the league game against Cavan that followed his father’s accident, but he was back with the Armagh squad soon after it. Keen to return to routine, he threw himself into training to win his place back.
“I’d been starting this year, I’ve been trying to nail down my place and I had done it at that stage and then I’d lost it because I’d missed those games against Fermanagh and Cavan,” he said.
“I was back in training right after the Cavan game and was able work my way back in. I got a start against Galway and it went on from there.”
His return helped to turn the tide. His passing and energy and two points in the final game contributed to Armagh finishing the league with a morale-boosting draw-draw-win sequence. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep them up.
“I was happy enough to get back in and played the last three games and got into a bit of form, so I was happy,” he said.
“I’d had a few hamstring problems earlier in the year and was glad to finish off the league quite strong with my own form. If you’re looking at the league as a whole, purely in terms of performance, our last three games against Galway, Tyrone and Derry were a whole lot better.
“We were playing against the so-called stronger teams in the division and holding our own. You don't want to be going down, but the way we looked at it was we had to put it behind us and we felt and we had ended on a high note. Straight away, you thought: ‘we’ll worry about Division Three next year, let's get ready for Cavan'."
Of course, promoted Cavan will worry about Division One next year and, if they intend to survive in the top-flight, they’ll need to show they can handle Armagh in their own backyard. They handled them well enough in the league, winning by 17 points, and Grugan expects the Breffni men to be prepared for a backlash on Sunday: “I'm sure there’s a lot of talk about guarding against complacency after giving us a beating like that,” he said.
“But I don’t think they'd be that naïve that we'll be the same team as we were that night. They obviously have to guard against that, but we have to worry about ourselves. When they get their tails up, they’re quite a hard team to stop. In the league game, they built up a bit of a lead and we almost dropped our heads. It looked a wee bit like we'd thrown the towel in at one stage.
“But I don’t really see it in terms of bridging a gap. Every game takes on a life of its own. I wouldn’t be thinking: ‘right, they beat us by 17 points last time, so we’re starting with a 17-point deficit’. There are obviously things you have to target and certain players who were very strong that night who we will have to target, but it’s an even playing field in terms of the Championship.
“Two years ago, we got relegated and the whole thing was a bit down and we ended up going on a bit of a run. So we can only take it as it comes. After what happened against Cavan in the league, this is a massive game for us and, sure, whatever comes after that, we’ll see.”
This weekend, football takes over and everything is focused on Cavan. The routine kicks in: rest, eat, hydrate, gum shield, gloves, boots… Armagh travel to Cavan as underdogs, but Orchard fans can be sure Rory Grugan will give all he has on Sunday for team, county and family.
John Grugan must have been very proud of the young man he brought up.
