Respect the spur to bearing the unbearable

Armagh reaction: Dealing with an All-Ireland defeat is spontaneous. It is an embrace of pain, a walk towards suffering, a sort of chain reaction to the inconceivable, writes Ian O'Riordan.

It is trying to reason with the unbearable realisation of being on the losing side.

Yesterday Kieran McGeeney was stuck in that moment. A year ago the Armagh captain had walked the steps of the Hogan Stand to live through one of the greatest thrills in sport. Yesterday he chose to stand by the steps, on ground stained with tears and perspiration, and watch as Peter Canavan took away what had made McGeeney the master of his game.

And he had a few reasons for standing there. "Well, it was respect first," he says. "It was hard, and no one likes to lose, but we have to carry ourselves the same way in defeat as we did in victory. But you have to let it hurt as well. And remember those moments, because if you don't remember them then there is nothing to drive you on. And you'd be surprised what drives me on."

So begins McGeeney's reasoning. Still in the trance-like state that comes with an All-Ireland defeat, he talks about the thoughts going through his mind as he watched Canavan take what was his, and the hurt that came with it.

"I'd already had some words out on the field with Peter. And there's no doubt he's a fantastic athlete, and if he was from any other county in Ireland he'd already be gone down as an all-time great. He's been at that level for 14 years. So you had to give him his due respect."

Does it make it any easier at all losing to . . .

"No," he interrupts. "It doesn't matter who you lose to. Nothing makes losing easy. Nothing. I've played against Peter a long time, and there's no one more deserving of the win than him, but in sport there is very little room for sentiment.

"I mean it's hard to watch anyone take something off you. Especially your neighbours. In fact that makes it hurt that wee bit more. Still, it's the same. Winner takes all, loser takes nothing."

Clearly defeat is not going to sit easy on McGeeney's shoulders, but he's not going to make any false excuses - beyond the fact that he knows Armagh hadn't played to their full potential.

"Well yeah, but you can't take it away from Tyrone. They went out to stop our game, and probably succeeded to a certain extent. But we were always in with a shout, right up to the end. Even with two or three points there was nothing in it.

"We might have gone for goals a little to often, because even when we were the man down we still seemed to own the ball a bit more. But we needed some long-range scores, and instead took the wrong options. And in the heat of the battle that's always the difference between winners and losers."

Down the corridor his good friend and manager, Joe Kernan, isn't making any excuses either: "We didn't perform, not to the best of our ability. But you can make all the excuses you want. The best team still won out there on the day.

"We'll look at the video during the week, and it will probably hurt even more. We had those couple of goal chances, and we fluffed passes at vital times. But you could even that up anyway because Tyrone had three open goal chances as well."

As a decisive factor though, fingers naturally point to the sending-off of Diarmuid Marsden, yet Kernan wouldn't make a major issue of it. "Like a lot of people, I didn't see it. But the referee has a hard job any day he goes out and I thought Brian White refereed the game well.

"But of course he was a big loss. To lose a player of his calibre always is. He is liable to put over a few points from anywhere, and that's all we needed there at the end. But we were still chasing our tail towards the end."

Now talk turns to the future, and whether, after two years at the top, Armagh can come good again.

Kernan seems to think so. "Well you never say never. They're all hurting in that dressing-room, but there's no one talking about quitting. We'll take a break and see how things are next January."

For McGeeney, the next challenge is to keep on keeping on, and he wonders. "Well, it's 14 years on the road for me. But it's hard to say right now where Armagh will go from this. We could all climb mountains and swim seas there at five o'clock - and bust through walls.

"But whatever Joe wants to do he'll have the full backing of every single player. I personally hope he does stay another year, because he is something special. He's different from most men I've met, a winner through and through. But I know Joe and no doubt he will go again."