Living the perfect dream

Ian O'Riordan talks to the heroes of Armagh as they begin to take in theenormity of their accomplishment

One by one the Armagh footballers woke yesterday morning and started living a series of dreams: the dream where a lifetime's cause is realised, the dream of just one season, or just the dream performance.

Kieran McGeeney is still trying to find the words to describe what it means to bring the All-Ireland title back to Armagh, especially after he's spent the best part of his life trying. But the team captain is at least smiling a lot more these days.

"There was the belief in the team that we could do it this year," he says. "The players dug deep, and at half-time we knew the people wouldn't be giving us much hope. That spurred us on a bit as well, but we were never going to leave Croke Park without giving it our all. We decided to go out and throw everything at them."

McGeeney's account of Joe Kernan's already legendary half-time speech has him talking again about that spirit, that belief.

"Well, Joe will always say the right thing at the right time. He told us not to leave without any regrets, cause he felt he'd left there in 1977 with some regrets. Sometimes when you get words like that from the master it helps you believe even more.

"When the final whistle went on Sunday it was probably the best feeling I've ever had. I've spent a lot of time working towards this, just like the other players, and to finally realise that, and the way we realised it as well, was something special."

When he became the first Armagh man to get his hands on Sam Maguire he was thinking only of the team: "I was just the first of the 30. We all put in the same effort, and the boys like Shane Smith and Padraig Duffy and Colm O'Neill that made up the panel are just as important for us."

For Ronan Clarke it has just been the dream debut season. At 19 he has a right to feel all his best days are still ahead of him, yet there may never be a better day than Croke Park on Sunday

"It's starting to sink in now alright," he says, "when you read the papers and that. And it's a childhood dream come true. It was a long day though. From the moment I woke up I was nervous, but you just have to take it in your stride and that's what the whole team did."

Clarke's fearlessness in Croke Park should stand out for many years. Yet he wasn't a complete stranger to the big occasion. He'd played in the St Patrick's, Armagh, team that lost the All-Ireland Colleges title to their Navan namesakes two years ago, and was in the panel last year to witness the heartbreak of losing to Galway by a point in the qualifiers.

"I do remember sitting on the bench against Tyrone at the start of the championship, and Joe had the faith to put me on. Ever since that I haven't needed to look back. I was nervous out there for the last five minutes but the concentration was up to the peak.

"To be honest, too, I knew we were going to win after Oisín scored the goal. That was the turning point. At one stage half-time couldn't come fast enough, but Joe rallied us again. And the belief in this team is unbelievable. Joe installed that belief from the very start, but, I'll tell you, that talk at half-time would have opened your eyes."

That goal-scorer, Oisín McConville, is looking back on a dream performance - at least in the second half - that almost certainly turned the game. So much so that he was named man-of-the-match.

"I know everyone shakes their head when they get that award on these occasions," he says, "but I honestly didn't feel I deserved it. I just thought there were bigger men out there on Sunday. I thought Paul McGrane was unbelievable the whole game, and for me has been the player of the season.

"And the character all the boys showed in coming back into the game, after so many defeats in the past. So many really harsh defeats. One point here, one point there. You can't quite describe how that feels, and it's not going to sink in for a while."

McConville suggests, however, that half-time wasn't just about throwing old medals at the wall: "We talked a lot about breaking ball. At the start of the game we were picking up a load of breaking ball, and then we started losing it. And started going out on the game. So we concentrated on trying to get our hands on every break.

"I'm no statistician but we must have won 90 per cent of the breaks in the second half. We ended up dominating about 25 minutes of that second half, which is very hard to do against a team like Kerry.

"But I still think that's a great Kerry team. Some of the forwards are awesome, and you do find yourself sometimes just standing in awe at what they're doing. Mike Frank Russell is incredible, and for me is the ultimate forward."

Personally, though, getting the winning point against Dublin, and by all means the winning goal against Kerry, must mean a lot?

"Well a lot of personal things came out of this victory. But the one thing you want to win in this game is an All-Ireland medal, and we have that at last. We definitely had our bit of luck this year. But I feel we were long overdue it. We didn't have it against Kerry before, and we didn't have it against Meath or against Galway. So I think we were due a wee slice."

The GOAL challenge featuring Armagh against Louth takes place tomorrow at Crossmaglen (5.0). All proceeds will benefit GOAL's work with the famine threatened population of Malawi.