Champions thrive on desire

Armagh 1-12 Kerry 0-14 Ten minutes from the end of this momentous event, a switch ball found Steven McDonnell roaming towards the left corner. His smartly dispatched kick sailed over the bar and Armagh entered a magic dimension.

Even for a team with recognised ability to shut down opponents, surely the task of keeping Russell, Cooper and the dead-ball acumen of Ó Cinnéide at bay for a whole 600 ticks of the clock would be beyond the Ulster champions.

It wasn't and the dream of successive Armagh generations became reality. The scenes at the end of yesterday's Bank of Ireland All-Ireland football final did justice to the achievement. Admittedly the crowd scare at the presentation ensured that Croke Park has won the argument about the safety of such demonstrations, but no one was going to stop the bright orange hordes from massing in front of the Hogan Stand where Kieran McGeeney become the first man to raise Sam Maguire on behalf of Armagh.

This was a sensational victory. Few believed that Kerry would win comfortably, but even fewer believed that they wouldn't win at all. The match took a wretched turn for Armagh when the excellent John McEntee took a knock in the first few minutes, a second shortly afterwards, and had to be substituted in the 24th minute.

The team's misery was completed when Kerry burned them off in the second quarter and the one shot they had at hanging on to the opposition coat tails appeared to have evaporated when Oisín McConville missed a penalty just before the break. Four points down and facing the wind: it's hard to remember an All-Ireland won in the face of such dire adversity.

Aside from the history it so joyfully made, this was a remarkable match. By half-time Kerry looked like they hardly needed to turn up for the second half.

They looked to have weathered the best Armagh had to offer and comfortably survived.

For a long time in the second half the script was unaltered. And by the time Dara Ó Cinnéide's 45 in the 54th minute re-established their interval lead of four points going into the final quarter, it also copper-fastened a trend. Every time Armagh had huffed and puffed to trim a point off the deficit, Kerry effortlessly shot back to protect the advantage. The game looked well and truly up.

Instead, a minute later, the game turned like a power-driven screw and the challenge from the firm favourites cracked and splintered. McConville was the instrument of the revival. His goal was a marvellous thing both in conception and execution.

Andrew McCann brought the ball forward; off-loaded to McConville whose quick pass into Paul McGrane was intelligently flicked back to McConville. Now in the red zone the Crossmaglen winger finished in style, slipping the ball in the narrow side between Declan O'Keeffe and his right post.

That the turning point came in such dramatic fashion and from McConville was remarkable. To understand why, we need to start at the beginning.

Of all the courses popularly prescribed for Armagh's survival, one was that they should resist giving the match away in the opening quarter - as both Cork and Galway, to say nothing of less daunting opponents, had done in the past three months.

Armagh delivered on this. If anything they out-did their opponents and the new stadium's record crowd of 79,500 could smack its collective lips and anticipate a cracking denouement to the season. Four times in the first 20 minutes the sides were level.

This encouraging start for the northerners was achieved in unexpected fashion. For all the competitiveness the match flowed freely and at times exhilaratingly. Nine minutes and 30 seconds had elapsed before referee John Bannon awarded a free.

It was great stuff and these were the highlights: the long-range point-kicking of Armagh, whose half-time total of seven came entirely from play; the rapier incisions of Michael Russell and Colm Cooper; Steven McDonnell's early sharp-shooting; the insouciance of Armagh's 19-year-old Ronan Clarke playing - and winning - an All-Ireland on the great Séamus Moynihan; the helter-skelter movement through the yawning gaps that incongruously opened up all around the field; the intelligent, deep positioning of Ó Cinnéide.

In this unexpected scenario Kerry began to do extremely well in the half lines. This had been an area of potential pressure going into the match.

Armagh's rapacity in the middle third of the pitch had been a source of potential trouble for Páidí Ó Sé's team.

Instead, the half backs swarmed onto ball and slalomed forward. Eamonn Fitzmaurice got up for a point from centre back. The half forwards made an even greater impact as Kerry pulled away in the last 15 minutes of the first half. The pace of Sean O'Sullivan on one wing and the strength of Liam Hassett on the other began to stretch Armagh to breaking point.

Kieran McGeeney's instinct to vacate his position as soon as possession was lost around the middle and shore up the full-back line was looking a risky strategy as Eoin Brosnan exploited the space with a couple of surging runs.

In the 25th minute, he threw open Armagh's cover and engineered an opening for Russell whose crack at goal ended in a point.

Minutes later Brosnan executed a one-two with Hassett and swept in for a goal attempt that wasn't far off target.

With the points popping over and the gap growing, one incident summed up Kerry's superiority. Cooper slipped going for a ball with Enda McNulty and, while Kerry looked for a free, Armagh cleared the ball straight to Darragh Ó Sé. The Kerry captain might as well have been unmarked he had so much time to weigh his options and return the ball to Cooper who this time was fouled. Ó Cinnéide kicked the free.

McEntee's replacement, Barry O'Hagan, set up a chance for McConville at the end of the first half. It was a snap opportunity and the Armagh forward was quickly enveloped and fouled for a penalty by Declan O'Keeffe. The weight of history was on McConville as when his weak shot was stopped he maintained a tradition that has seen the county miss a penalty in all three of its All-Ireland finals.

There appeared no way back. Even at the start of the second half, Diarmuid Marsden - having his best match of the All-Ireland series for Armagh - shot weakly before taking a point. Yet Kerry were able to keep their opponents at arm's length. Aidan O'Rourke created an opportunity for Marsden with a swift raid down the right, but the ball was beaten out and McConville's whack at the rebound deflected wide.

McConville did point the 45, and then his goal turned the match like a key in a lock.

The countdown that followed showcased Armagh's strengths. The maligned full-back line weren't under so much pressure and Francie Bellew added to a tolerable first half on Russell by moving onto Cooper in the second. Hardly a ball travelled that far to put the switch to the test, but in the frantic closing exchanges Bellew and the McNultys held firm.

It was the Maginot line strung across the middle that commanded the final stage. Tony McEntee re-asserted the family presence with an effective contribution from the wing and O'Hagan won plenty of ball as the half forwards supplemented centrefield.

Captain McGeeney reached once more into his bag of awesome big-match performances to devour ball around the middle and physically confront any forwards coming through. His intervention indirectly brought about Kerry's final score when a typically committed pounce on Ó Cinnéide snuffed out a goal opportunity at the expense of a 45.

Kerry haven't a bad record at saving tight situations, but this time there was to be no deus ex machina, no Maurice Fitzgerald and no All-Ireland. They will regret the fatal loss of momentum in the second half, the implosion at centrefield and the missed points chances for Russell, Hassett and Brosnan.

But, essentially, there's no answer when a team with the hunger and desire of Armagh realises that its day has come.