ARMAGH minor manager Ciaran McKeever expressed his satisfaction with how his charges fared against Antrim in the Athletic Grounds on Saturday, but admitted that his side will need to improve to overcome Donegal in Ballybofey this weekend.
The Orchard County had five points to spare over the Saffrons one week on after losing out to Derry in their provincial opener at the same venue.
Armagh suffered a 1-5 to 0-4 defeat to Derry, but bounced back with a comfortable 1-14 to 1-9 win over Antrim last weekend.
The hosts raced into a 1-10 to 0-4 lead at the break thanks to a well-taken goal from Mark McKeever. Antrim briefly threatened a comeback when Calum Higgins found the net 10 minutes into the second half after a handling error from Armagh centre-back Sean McVerry, but Armagh always held the upper hand.
“We knew they would come back at us and we spoke about it at half-time. We knew there’d be a period in the game when Antrim throw everything at us and we had to deal with it,” said McKeever.
“We should have dealt with that goal a bit better and Sean (McVerry) was disappointed with how he dealt with the situation from his own perspective. We’ll work on it mid-week at training. We know that won’t be nearly good enough in Ballybofey next Saturday.
“A few boys picked up bangs and we took them off straight away. We felt we were comfortable enough in the game so there was no point in risking boys with 20 minutes to go. We’d probably one eye on next weekend at that stage.
“In the first half, we pressed really well around the middle and we overturned them and we got quick, early ball into our forward line. Defensively, if you look at our second half performance, that wouldn’t be good enough against Donegal.
“We spoke about it back in November and these are the teams we want to be playing and these are the teams we want to chase down. We are making progress and we’ll see where we are on Saturday evening.”
Goal-scorer Mark McKeever was one of those players taken off as a precaution after the Tullysaran attacker came off second best in a collision with Antrim goalkeeper Jonathan Rodgers moments before Higgins plundered a goal at the other end.
McKeever is expected to recover from a suspected dead leg in time to feature against Donegal while Carrickcruppen’s Jack Cunningham should also be fit.
Armagh’s tactic of delivering quick, direct ball into their full-forward line worked well with McKeever hitting 1-2 from play before coming off while Cullyhana’s Caolan Reavey also caught the eye in scoring three points from play.
“Every game is different but coming into this game, we identified that we’d probably get the chance to play quick, early ball into the inside line,” added the Armagh boss.
“We know the quality we have in there - if we get quality ball into them, they’ll cause damage. That’s the difference this week from last week. Derry played with two sweepers so every game is different.
“Derry put more pressure on us around the middle of the pitch and it made it hard for us to get our head up and get that early ball in. You have to give Derry credit for that, but we worked on it and it paid dividends for us in the first half.”
Meanwhile, Antrim minor boss Collie McAllister felt his side paid the price for a below-par showing in the first half.
“That first half performance wasn’t good enough to win any Championship match,” stated McAllister.
“When you concede 1-10 in 30 minutes of football you are going to be up against it. There were a lot of nerves out there in the first half and it took them an awful long time to settle. They didn’t stick to the gameplan. In the second half, they made up a bit of ground, but they’d left themselves too much to catch up.
“We expected to get more scores in the first half and Armagh really kicked on after that goal. We didn’t a response after the goal - the next score is vital. It is always difficult when you start chasing it.”
