EVERY other county in the province has been to at least one final since Armagh last made it to the Ulster showpiece back in 2008.
Regularly mentioned among the contenders, the Orchard county have invariably fallen flat on their faces over the last 15 years and, although he says cramped fixture-scheduling has caused the Ulster Championship to lose some of its prestige since his own playing days, Armagh assistant-manager Ciaran McKeever would surely love to end his county’s barren run this year.
If the Orchardmen are to capture the Anglo-Celt they’ll have to do it the hard way beginning with Saturday’s preliminary round clash against Antrim (finalists in 2009) at the Athletic Grounds.
The League finished in relegation but this weekend’s encounter is the start of a new chapter for Armagh and Aidan Nugent, James Morgan, Ben Crealey, Eoin Woods and Paddy Burns are all fit to play a part while McKeever says Rian O’Neill and Andrew Murnin “won’t be far away”.
He uses the same expression “we’re not far away” when he rates an Armagh side that has struggled to find the form they showed last year but could be one win away from doing so.
“There are things we have to fix but we’ll fix them,” promised McKeever.
“We’re looking forward to righting the wrongs (of the League) against Antrim and start building from there to get ready for the Super 16s.
“There were loads of positives in the League. We showed glimpses of what we’re at and what we can do. We showed glimpses of the style of play that we produced last year but we just haven’t been at it for 70 minutes. We haven’t been efficient or effective enough with the ball through the middle third. But that’ll all come and we have to be ready for Antrim.”
The Cullyhanna native – a five-time Ulster winner during his career – rejects accusations of Armagh reverting to a more defensive style this year. The system remains the same, he says, but the form of the players has dipped just enough.
“I don’t buy into it at all,” says McKeever.
“Go back and watch some of our games last year, we played 13-14 men behind the ball but we used the ball better when we got it back. We have showed glimpses of that this year but we haven’t done it over a whole game.
“We have been playing against top teams and, the same way nobody wants to give David Clifford any space, nobody wants to give our forwards any space and every time we won the ball back in that middle third they did what Galway did – they fouled us. Teams don’t allow you to transition quickly up the pitch so that’s what you’re up against.
“Whenever you get the chance to smell blood and counter quick you’ve got to do it and we haven’t been as sharp at that this year as we were in last year’s Championship. There are areas of the pitch we need to tidy-up on and we’ll get them fixed leading into the Championship and further down the line.”
As for relegation, now that the dust has settled – does it really make a difference come Championship time? Derry (14/1) and Dublin (5/2) both played in the second tier this year but both are shorter odds than Armagh (22/1) to claim the Sam Maguire.
“It (relegation) is not going to determine where we go in the Ulster Championship or the Super 16s,” said McKeever.
“We’re not a million miles away. It’s fine margins at the top level so we’re under no illusion there and all we can do is prepare and look forward to the Antrim game.”
