Armagh's force of nature

Tom Humphries looks at the importance of the McGeeney factor in the context of his county's push for All-Ireland glory

Kieran McGeeney occasionally tells a story about what it was like being an Armagh man in the bad old days of the early 1990s, when not only Derry and Donegal acquired All-Irelands but the black-and-red hordes from across the border in Down annexed another two for their collection.

McGeeney was a student and had been an Armagh panellist for some time (he got his start in a challenge against Meath while still in school) before making his championship debut in 1992 in a local derby against Down, who were then All-Ireland champions.

No fairy tale. He lasted 15 rough minutes then said goodbye to the game and hello to the infirmary. He had a dislocated shoulder and was in dire need of some stitches.

That's not the story he tells though. Much simpler. He would go for an evening occasionally to "The Bot", or The Botanic, one of Belfast's teeming student pubs, and the evening would pass like Chinese water torture, people pulling his tail and yanking his chain about when Armagh were going to do it, and what had happened to Armagh and were Armagh still playing senior and did they consider themselves more of a hurling county. So it went. And McGeeney would smile politely and promise with an intensity which never diminished with repetition that Armagh's day would come.

What's surprising about the story isn't McGeeney's certainty; young men are entitled to travel free of doubt. No, what intrigues is the idea of McGeeney in a crowded, smoky bar full of dissolute and drunken students. It's hard to imagine him wasting hours listening to the burping braggadocio of Down men or the hiccuped boasts of Oak Leafers. But he was there and he was resolute. Armagh would prevail.

By the end of that decade though even McGeeney must have been beginning to doubt. Meath won the last All-Ireland of the decade. Ulster had returned itself to the status of annual faction fight and even Armagh's heroic tussle with Kerry in the semi-final of 2000 seemed like one of those odd little blips which are footnotes in the history of Kerry football. The days of novelty All-Ireland winners were gone.

Still half a decade further on Kerry are All-Ireland champions again but Armagh start into the championship tomorrow as probably the most complete team in the country. And McGeeney is still there, not just a symbol of excellence but a totem of intensity and passion, the game's benchmark for commitment and dedication.

Nobody should be surprised. If you were building a soccer team you would create it around a Roy Keane; if you were assembling a basketball team you would require a Michael Jordan. McGeeney lists Keane and Jordan among his personal heroes, and although he is quick to point out that he doesn't compare himself favourably with either one, he has the qualities of both.

Not only has he driven every team on which he has played to a higher level but as he has grown older he has reinvented and adapted his play so that he is always relevant and vital.

The concluding stages of the league when Armagh got interested enough in the idea of winning the competition were instructive. Ciarán McDonald was erased from the pitch in the semi-final. Against Wexford the damage inflicted by McGeeney was less specific and more general. He was everywhere, a dervish undoing Wexford's enthusiasms at every turn.

McGeeney's prolonged pre-eminence at the top of a game which has become no country for old men is no surprise to those who knew him first. He dabbled in athletics when younger and retains the single-

mindedness of the long-distance runner.

The Mullaghbawn club who cradled him through the early years were out of fashion at the time and would soon see their south Armagh neighbours Crossmaglen begin astral travel. McGeeney brought something different to every team, however.

Mullaghbawn teams bolstered by McGeeney won every underage title on the way up, including the minor championship of 1986 and two under-21 titles in 1989 and 1990. McGeeney wasn't a one-man show but he made the orchestra play.

When he went senior the club hopskipped from junior to intermediate to senior in as many years and won their first county title in 31 years back in 1995.

They went on to win an Ulster club championship.

When he moved south, settling eventually on playing his football with Na Fianna, where there was an Armagh connection already established, his impact was just as crucial in turning what had been traditionally a nice football side into something more intense and physical.

In Na Fianna's best year, 1999, McGeeney was Leinster club player of the year.

What happened after needs no repeating. Armagh's four Ulster titles would at one stage in the county's history have been sufficient triumph for any generation. McGeeney redefined the parameters through heresy, pointing out on the steps in Clones as he lifted the Anglo Celt Cup, "It's not the cup I want to lift."

When asked about the rewards of football he has occasionally pointed out, "The only thing you can really get out of it is an All-Ireland medal."

This winter has been atypical. McGeeney is taking a year out from his job with the Irish Sports Council. He spent the first three months of the year travelling in New Zealand. Something very McGeeney, very uncliched, about that choice of destination.

Others take a year out. McGeeney goes farther than anyone for his break during that year though.

Not surprisingly, he came back from New Zealand in as fine a shape as when he left.

People who meet McGeeney for the first time are often surprised by how so physical and courageous a player can look so light and lean. His power is in his commitment and drive though.

From his sabbatical, stories perhaps apocryphal trailed home after him. Tales of McGeeney doing his legendary gym workouts and other gymrats gathering around just to watch and to be near the intensity. The assumption that he was a top level rugby player. The explanation that he was a Gaelic footballer briefly astray in the world.

True or not, it is McGeeney's work ethic which is at the heart of every story about the man and it is that work ethic which works its way into every conversation about the player.

In Na Fianna they speak of the impact he made literally and metaphorically when he arrived and with slight but mannerly impatience reconfigured the shouldering exercise the players were doing in pairs by lining the whole squad up in a zig-zag pattern and drilling through them, toppling them one by one.

He recently sought to explain his longevity as a top-level sportsman by emphasising the importance of rest to him. A night off doesn't equal a night out. He is quietly obsessive about diet and about the controlled intake of foods and liquids.

"You just don't go out. Well, I don't."

His importance to Armagh cannot be overstated. The team is mutating quite quickly. Only eight of tomorrow's starters began the All-Ireland final of 2002. And the All-Ireland-winning half-back line of Aidan O'Rourke, McGeeney and Andy McCann has only one component in place tomorrow as McGeeney is flanked by two graduates of last year's under-21s, Aaron Kernan and Ciarán McKeever. Tossing not one but two championship debutants into a half-back line would be inconceivable if the line weren't anchored by McGeeney.

Armagh and McGeeney may have established a mindset which looks beyond the skirmishes of Ulster and at the bigger picture, but given the widespread admiration of their recent league performances they will be wary as ever of a repeat of what happened at precisely this time of year in 2003, when the All-Ireland champions went to Clones and got dumped out of Ulster by Monaghan.

Fermanagh have that difficult second-album syndrome to overcome this weekend and lack the element of surprise Monaghan packed that day. And Armagh have McGeeney, whose absence two years ago left them slack and unguarded.

The insertion of McGeeney, rested and refreshed and hungry for another conquest of thepinnacle, into Armagh's league campaign transformed things.

It would be untypical if he were found napping tomorrow.