Two weeks can be a long time in football. Certainly, that's the way it seemed at Parnell Park yesterday where Dublin used their Hallowe'en day defeat to Tyrone as a sort of wake-up call and moved on to much better things with a performance that bordered on the impressive in defeating the Ulster champions by a comfortable eight points.
Armagh can have few complaints. In the first half, when they had at least a fair share of the possession, they squandered so many chances - kicking 10 wides in a terrible display of wastefulness - that it merely gave extra confidence to a Dublin team who were evidently chomping at the bit to prove that their previous outing bore little relationship to their true abilities.
The Dubs were a far more cohesive unit on this occasion, and it was especially noticeable that players worked far harder for each other: when passes were misdirected, there was a greater willingness to correct the error.
And, in defence, apart from the obvious presence of Paul Curran, there were fine performances from corner backs Martin Cahill, on his debut, and Declan Conlon, who recovered from the facial injury he suffered on his own debut two weeks ago.
Indeed, there were a number of late changes to both sides to facilitate those Na Fianna players who preferred to be released in advance of next Sunday's Leinster club semi-final. Tommo Lynch and Dessie Farrell stood down from the Dublin team, and Des Mackin from the Armagh team, although captain Kieran McGeeney did line out.
The trend was set early on. Shane Ryan, venturing forth from his wing-back position, where he had a good game, kicked a long-range point in the second minute to give Dublin a lead they never relinquished. He was followed soon after by Jonathon McGee, a revelation at centrefield, who kicked the first of his three-point haul from play.
In between, the Armagh trend was also set as Paul McGrane and Kieran Hughes kicked wides that would eventually suck the self-belief out of the visitors. Indeed, Armagh's first point didn't arrive until the 15th minute when Mark McCrory kicked over from long range, but, by then, Dublin had already had four.
Apart from some bad wides, Armagh were also denied by Dublin goalkeeper David Byrne, who is close to earning cult status with the terrace supporters. In each half, he pulled off superb saves: to deny James Byrne in the first, and then to smother a Cathal O'Rourke shot in the second when Armagh were thrown into desperation stakes.
By half-time, Dublin's greater accuracy had eased them into a four-point lead - 0-7 to 0-3 - with the final point of the half, coming from Ciaran Whelan after a move instigated by Paul Croft and involving Declan Darcy, arguably the pick of the crop.
If anything, Dublin's second-half performance was even more impressive with some good movements that resulted in well-taken points. In just the first minute, Whelan, Jim Gavin and McGee were involved in a crisp move that finished with the centre-fielder fisting over and, some minutes later, Colin Moran showed his clinical inclinations with another fisted point.
Armagh, who had won a good deal of the breaking ball around the middle of the pitch in the first half, found it increasingly difficult to win possession as the game wore on - and, indeed, it appeared that the inordinate number of wides suffered by them early on in the match dented their confidence later when there was a tendency to overplay the ball. Ultimately, the quest for a goal to revive their fortunes proved to be a vain one.
In the match programme, Dublin manager Tom Carr suggested that they needed to "rise above the level of mediocrity". They achieved that yesterday in a performance that was certainly a step in the right direction.
DUBLIN: D Byrne; M Cahill, P Christie, D Conlon; P Curran, P Andrews, S Ryan (0-1); C Whelan (0-2), J McGee (0-3); D Darcy (0-4, two frees), C Moran (0-2), E Crennan; J Gavin, E Sheehy (0-1), M O'Keeffe. Subs: P Croft (0- 1) for Crennan (32 mins); B O'Brien for O'Keeffe (44 mins); M Casey for Curran (50 mins); S Cowan for Gavin (64 mins); D Homan for Whelan (69 mins).
ARMAGH: B Tierney; E McNulty, G Reid, M McNeill; K Hughes, K McGeeney, A McCann (0-1); P McGrane, J McNulty; P McKeever, C O'Rourke (0-2, frees), M McCrory (0-1); J Byrne, D Marsden (0-1), S McDonnell (0-1, `45'). Subs: D Wilson for Byrne (47 mins); M Broderick for McDonnell (47 mins).
Referee: P Russell (Tipperary).
