THERE was something preordained about Armagh’s All-Ireland victory last Sunday. A kind of indefinable optimism that the sweat-drenched orange jerseys of Armagh would be hanging over the steps of the Hogan stand at around 5pm, victorious.
From the elderly gentleman on the bridge just beyond Newry who gently waved his fist in the air to the passing motorists bound for Croke - an unforgettably defiant, happy, expectant salute - to the noisy Armagh fans who’d milled around Drumcondra hours before throw-in and heavily outnumbered the Galway contingent.
It was difficult to understand so many pundits tipping the Tribesmen in what was always a 50-50 game.
For a good chunk of Kieran McGeeney’s reign, Armagh had been labelled a team that always choked on the Championship stage – if you can call coming out on the wrong end of a penalty shoot-out four times as choking - but just decided to stop choking and to write a different ending to their 2024 season.
On the day, Galway’s own conservatism killed them. That irrefutable regret will stay with the Galway management team and players for a long time – or at least until they win the Sam Maguire.
For the last number of years, Galway played the most patient, pragmatic football imaginable, where possession of the football became 10-tenths of the law to them.
They’ve been a team that rarely puts the ball in harm’s way – moving the ball side to side, like a skilled boxer, managing the distance between themselves and contact, tentatively bringing it into the opposition’s 45-metre line and ushering it out again. Rinse and repeat.
When Barcelona were giving Manchester United football lessons in their Champions League finals of 2009 and 2011, Alex Ferguson likened Barca’s tiki-taka style as being placed on a carousel and becoming dizzy by the movement of Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets and Messi.
Obviously not to the same aesthetic effect, Galway have been doing something similar to their opponents.
They keep moving the ball and eventually an opposition player will fail to track a run and Cillian McDaid, Matthew Tierney, Liam Silke, Johnny Maher or Paul Conroy will find the pocket and score.
Inside, Damien Comer and Shane Walsh were smothered, both criminally peripheral for an All-Ireland final.
Huge credit must go to Armagh coach Ciaran McKeever for devising a defensive system that was tailor-made to nullify the Tribesmen.
Galway were their own worst enemies, as it takes them an eternity to work a score; it’s much too labour-intensive. Maybe the trialled two points for a score outside the 40-metre arc will suit them.
Moreover, in Sunday’s final they were rarely in front for long enough to frustrate Armagh and draw them out.
It was fitting the team that played with the most courage triumphed on Sunday.
Rather than fist pass and recycle to a team-mate, Oisin Conaty ran directly at Sean Mulkerrin in the early throes of the game to register two points.
Armagh’s attacks were more vertical too, their performance laced with bravery.
Barring Paul Conroy, no Galway player would have attempted to shoot from the angle Rian O’Neill scored from in the 41st minute.
It’s doubtful too if a Galway man would have attempted the raking point that Oisin O’Neill struck in the 66th minute especially after fluffing his lines from the same area of the field against Kerry.
Arguably a braver kick from Oisin O’Neill was the one he found Niall Grimley with four minutes earlier - a ball that had to be inch perfect and coming over his shoulder – and from which Armagh scored from.
It’s the type of pass that has almost been outlawed in the modern game, but Armagh were brave enough to try it, and were richly rewarded.
Contrast that to Liam Silke’s failure to not pop the ball between Armagh’s posts who then passed it out to Shane Walsh from a more difficult angle and distance who missed the target.
Silke’s decision was a classic example of where a player is so conditioned in the art of trying to work a 90 or 100 percent scoring chance – even though his opportunity was comfortably in that ballpark.
Psychologically and tactically, Armagh were better prepared for Sunday’s All-Ireland final.
And as far as victory speeches go, none will rival Aidan Forker’s from the steps of Hogan.
“Let today be a lesson. To anyone, anywhere that has a dream in life: with faith, with hard work and belief, anything is possible. Many of us are living our dreams here today. Never give up on what you’re chasing. Up Armaggghhhhhh!”
Whether it’ll do justice to the natural ability that resides in Armagh’s class of ‘24, the abiding legacy of this group is that they never gave up.
They will be remembered for their unbreakable resilience, so many of their players could have walked away owing their county nothing – but they chose the hardest path and were richly rewarded.
“Sometimes your strongest steel is forged in fire,” Kieran McGeeney said.
“It’s very hard to articulate to people but when your own personality is entwined in a victory or defeat and the impact it can have on you and what it can do. And in those moments we lost on penalties and sat in there with our heads in our hands, did that have an impact in the last five minutes? Definitely. They refused to be beaten.”
