NFL Division One: Dublin 1-25 Armagh 2-24
Armagh stared into the relegation abyss on Saturday night and ultimately told the abyss what it could do with itself. They were 11 points down with half an hour to go against Dublin in Croke Park but sizzled them like butter on a pan from there to the end. What it means for either side won’t be clear until next weekend but there’s little doubt whose shoes you’d rather be in heading for the championship.
Because when they hit their groove, Armagh will give anyone their fill of it. Oisin Conaty finally exploded in the second half here after a league of damp squibs. Ben Crealey, Tiernan Kelly and Greg McCabe ransacked the Dublin kickout and set up wave after wave of attack. Oisin O’Neill and Conor Turbitt came off the bench and kicked the two-pointers that were lacking.
“I think they’ve been playing well all year,” said Kieran McGeeney afterwards. “The first half wasn’t like us at all. We were very, very poor, shockingly poor. Bar maybe three or four players. But they definitely turned around in the second half and they not only stood up but stood out. They were excellent in the way they brought the game to Dublin.”
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They had to be, since the first half on Saturday night was comfortably Dublin’s best display under Brennan. The Dubs ran up 1-15 in the opening period, which is the sort of total you hear about on the radio during the league and assume the team scoring it had a big wind behind them. That wasn’t the case here – the night was still as a morning lake and conditions had no effect on the game at all.
No, it was just that Dublin were humming. Everywhere you looked, Dublin forwards were sparkling. Niall Scully had four points on the board inside the opening 10 minutes, Luke Breathnach had a stellar night, swishing four points from play before the break before going off with an ominous looking shoulder injury early in the second half.
Paddy Small was untouchable at times, stutter-stepping around defenders and spearing points, pushing Dublin nine clear at the break. Everything looked hunky-dory for them – they even came out the better of a tunnel shemozzle, with Jarly Óg Burns starting the second half on a black card and Scully being handed a tap-over free.
McGeeney had plenty to say about that too – the free was against him for half-time dissent, for which referee David Gough gave him a yellow card. The two incidents were separate – Burns was far more sinned against than sinning in the tunnel row and McGeeney’s exchange with Gough was about what he thought was a foul on Aaron McKay just before the Seán Bugler two-pointer that ended the half. One way or another, he cut a frustrated figure when it was brought up.
“It’s an embarrassment for me,” he said, referring to the tap-over free he’d cost his team by berating Gough at half-time. “But I struggle. I struggle a lot. All you’re always looking for is fair play. The rules against one team should be the rules for the other team. It shouldn’t waver. It just shouldn’t waver.”
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Gough would presumably defend himself and say he applied the rules fairly for both sides. For what it’s worth, Armagh scored eight points from a possible 10 when it came to frees awarded in the scoring zone, whereas Dublin only had two kickable frees all night, one of which was down to the Armagh manager himself.
As it happened, the visitors rallied themselves and started to get a foothold while Burns was in the sinbin. Dublin were 1-18 to 1-7 ahead in the 40th minutes and still had five minutes of a numerical advantage left to run. And yet they were outscored by 13 points from there to the end.
Armagh’s comeback started with a couple of Oisin O’Neill frees, one of them a two-pointer. Then Conaty started to get into the game, fizzing with energy as he cut in off the left for a couple of his own. Conor Turbitt arrived off the bench to whip over a point and followed it with a two-pointer. In the space of 16 minutes, Armagh had cut the margin from 11 to just one.
Dublin rallied, with Cormac Costello and Eoin Kennedy stretching the lead to three but with Ross McQuillan firing from wing-back and Oisin O’Neill flawless on the frees, Armagh were level in the 64th minute.
Enter Conaty to win the game for them. It has been an annoying league for the former Young Footballer of the Year, all squandered goal chances and hurried wides. But this time it all fell into place with what must go down as one of the goals of the year, slaloming through the Dublin defence like an orange-clad Georgi Kinkladze and planting his finish past O’Sullivan.
“Armagh outworked us in the second half,” said Brennan afterwards. “You can have these wonderful structures and different choreographed plays, whether it’s kick-outs or whatnot. But when someone is putting their teeth into you, that’s where you would like to see your guys step up and show a bit more leadership.
“Some of our newer guys, it’ll be a good learning for them. Having not played at this level before to have felt that pressure that Armagh exerted. Some of our older lads, again there’s a bit of soul-searching to do now in terms of what happened in the second half.”
Dublin: Hugh O’Sullivan; Eoin Murchan, Nathan Doran, David Byrne; Eoin Kennedy (0-0-2), Brian Howard, Alex Gavin; Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne, Charlie McMorrow; Luke Breathnach (0-0-4), Seán Bugler (0-1-2), Niall Scully (0-0-5, 2f); Paddy Small (0-1-4), Killian McGinnis (0-0-3), Ross McGarry (1-0-0). Subs: Sean McMahon for Doran (16 mins); Cormac Costello (0-0-1) for Breathnach (47 mins); Ciarán Kilkenny for McGarry (51 mins); Doran for McMahon (52 mins); Liam Smith for Byrne (66 mins).
Armagh: Blaine Hughes; Tomas McCormack (0-0-3), Gareth Murphy, Peter McGrane; Ross McQuillan (0-0-3), Tiernan Kelly, Jarly Óg Burns; Ben Crealey (0-0-1), Darragh McMullan; Aaron McKay, Jason Duffy (0-0-2), Greg McCabe; Cian McConville (1-0-3, 2f), Callum O’Neill (0-0-1, 1f), Oisin Conaty (1-0-3). Subs: Oisin O’Neill (0-1-3, 3f, 1tpf) for C O’Neill; Paddy Burns for McKay (blood) (43-45 mins); Conor Turbitt (0-1-1) for Duffy (52 mins); Aidan Forker for McMullan (69 mins).
Referee: David Gough (Meath).
