Armagh boss Kieran McGeeney ‘delighted’ as his side grind out a close win over Louth

Armagh battled back from behind to overcome Louth and avoid a shock defeat in their Allianz Football League Division 2 opener on Saturday night.

Despite the bookmakers’ predictions of a comfortable win for the hosts, Armagh were pushed to brink and twice trailed by four points, but got over the line after superb second half performances from Stefan Campbell and Conor Turbitt.

Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney had warned going into the game that Louth were going to provide a difficult challenge, and he was certainly proved correct. In 2023, his side had the unfortunate habit of losing close games, so McGeeney was glad to grind out a tough game and start off the campaign with two points on the board.

“We’re delighted to get the two points in our first game at home, because it was a tricky match,” he said.

“Louth were one of the best teams in the Championship last year, even in the Super 16, the only team to deal with them was Kerry.

“They are very strong and physical and tall around the middle, really good ball players, have serious pace on the counter with [Conor] Grimes and [Craig] Lennon, and we knew it was going to be a tight game.

“We said that before it, we just wanted to be on the right side of a point or two. Last year every game we lost was by a score.

“In parts of the first half, we played really well but four (misplaced) fist passes actually gave them their four scores, when we were running at them going forward.

“It was very costly and we ended up getting four scores in a more controlled manner in the first half. I suppose the end result is what counts, you just have to look at last weeks’ club game (Glen v St Brigid’s), you can be the best team for 29 minutes but if you are the worst team for the last minute, it is costly.

“There are two or three teams at the top level, and we are all trying to catch them and there is another seven our eight of us who are just trying to cut out those mistakes and make sure when you get those goal chances that you put them away.”

First game jitters

The home side played against a strong breeze in the first half and got off to a slow start, which McGeeney put down to nervousness at the start of a new season.

“It was the nervousness in front of goal,” he reasoned for their lack of early scoring.

“In that period we had those goal chances, we had a couple of shots too, we actually had more shots than them but it is very hard to be hard on everybody on our first day out.

“There are loads of mistakes you could home in on but it is just very disappointing when you leave it in the laps of the officials, it can go any way.”

Strength in depth

Armagh were missing several key players in Saturday night’s win.

Ethan Rafferty and James Morgan are longer-term absences, whilst McGeeney will hope to have the likes of Rian O’Neill, Andrew Murnin and Aaron McKay back soon, as well as the Cullyhanna All-Ireland winning contingent.

“We have Rian, Andrew, Ethan, and James Morgan out, we have about five of them coming back in that have had no training.

“They are all quality players and to be fair to the boys they have been doing well and to have Jason [Duffy] and Aidan Nugent and Ross McQuillan back too, it is putting a big push on, but you are only as good the competition for places when you are winning, when you lose and people haven’t got those positions feel that they should be in.

“We have Meath at home next week and they will be a big strong physical team, they don’t give the ball away and they got up the steps in Croke Park last year and we know we have a target on our back – but that is a good thing.”