ARMAGH suffered disappointment after disappointment during 2016, but Kieran McGeeney insists there is hope for the future in the Orchard county.
The Armagh manager has earmarked a number of emerging young players and, while he says they may not reach fruition “in my time”, he feels they will make an impact at inter-county level.
A poor start in Division Two saw the Orchard men relegated in the final round of league fixtures, then Cavan extinguished their Ulster Championship hopes before Laois knocked Armagh out of the Qualifiers in a refixture at O’Moore Park last Saturday.
“The hardest thing this year was losing our divisional status,” said ‘Geezer’ on Tuesday.
“We took a few chances at the start of the year playing with a lot of young players, we left a lot of the older players out at the beginning of the league to give them a bit of a break and the Crossmaglen boys were gone too.
“Then, when we went to take them back in, they had a lot of injuries, so it backfired a wee bit. We finished off the league fairly well - one more win and we would have been pushing for promotion rather than relegation and that was probably the most disappointing part of it.
“We still seem to struggle to convert our scoring chances - I think when it’s taken in perspective, we’re playing as well as the teams we’re playing against, but their efficiency is far greater than ours and it shouldn’t be because I think we have quality forwards as well. From my point of view, I have to look at some of the stuff I’m doing and I’m doing wrong to make that conversion rate better.”
McGeeney can tinker with training sessions and deliver motivational speeches for hours on end but, ultimately, he can’t kick the ball over the bar for his players. While the end result - relegation and no Championship wins - was a poor return, a few extra points here and there would have made a difference in a season that came down to small margins.
“You hate going could-have and should-have because, in sport, they don’t really add up to much,” said McGeeney.
“But in terms of coaching points and trying to get players to believe in themselves, in the second-half [against Laois], they were very, very good. We missed an easy goal and dropped a couple short at key moments but, in terms of dominating and playing good football, we definitely did that considering the players that we were missing - from last year’s Division Three final, we had four available out of 15.
“But the other side of that is the likes of Shea Heffron, Joe McElroy, Niall Grimley, Jemar Hall, Stephen Sheridan probably wouldn’t have got any game-time this year and, with some of our players getting a wee bit older and having those young players show well for the future - maybe not in my time - but to get four or five league games and three Championship games under their belt is a good start for them.
“Three of them in particular acquitted themselves very well and a few of the other ones coming on did pretty okay as well, so there definitely is something and they’re very keen to play for their county.”
McGeeney is optimistic that long-serving defenders Ciaran McKeever and Andy Mallon will return next season - but conceded injury problems have left Kevin Dyas’ inter-county future in the balance.
“It’s a 50/50 chance with the operation he took, which is a pity,” he said.
“My first game with Armagh, against Tipperary, he took a bad injury and it has been down hill ever since, but he’s a massive loss. Andrew Murnin is the same and he has had five or six years of chronic hamstring injuries and that’s why he didn’t play for Armagh for those years, but it was recommended he takes the whole year off for him, which was hard because he is such a key player for us, but hopefully it will be of benefit into the future.”
