Can Armagh's triumph open the floodgates?
13/09/2024 09:51:12
A season of Sunday's ended with Armagh raising Sam Maguire in Croke Park, the Orchard County – most typically given how their season played out – having had a single point to spare over Galway in what eventually proved a frantic All-Ireland Football final.
Padraig Joyce and his Tribesmen will surely be left to reflect over a long winter on a coronation left behind. The game was there was for Galway to win, with Shane Walsh's profligacy from dead balls contributing heavily to their ultimate downfall.
The famous quarter-final win over Dublin will forever be inscribed in folklore in the western county, but, in the end, they fell agonisingly short on the grand stage. A second All-Ireland final defeat in three years is, for now at least, the legacy of this Galway team.
To the victor, the spoils. Armagh tasted the ultimate success for just the second time in their history. Kieran McGeeney sampled All-Ireland glory as manager, two decades on from captaining his county to Sam Maguire's success as a player.
"Armagh tasted the ultimate success for just the second time in their history."
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No manager is more deserving of that glory. McGeeney is a warrior, a titan of Gaelic games and someone that has sacrificed so much in pursuit of that silverware. The doubters were plentiful at times but, when the dust settles, Geezer got there. Armagh are the kings of the land for 2024. History won't deny them that.
But what of the future, what has the latest All-Ireland Football Championship told us? Who comes next?
Joyce knows where the blame lies
Galway can only reflect on a butchered All-Ireland opportunity, and Joyce knows it.
"We've nobody to blame really but ourselves," was his reflection on the Croker Park decider. "We probably made more mistakes in that second half than we did all year."
Therein lies the pain that will haunt Galway for the foreseeable future. Armagh didn't so much win the final, Galway lost it. They had the chances, in open play and from frees, to win the game quite comfortably. Armagh, once they found themselves in the lead in the second half, stayed true to themselves, doing what Armagh typically does.
They tightened up and looked to hold on when a more adventurous approach might well have suffocated Galway. The lack of late scores kept the game in the balance, and the Tribesmen had more than enough chances late on to salvage the occasion.
Only time will tell if Joyce can bring his Galway team back from this devastating loss, but it certainly appears to be a major task in front of him now.
McGeeney joins the elite
In his time as a manager, McGeeney has endured many a tough day with Kildare and Armagh. They were teams that teetered on the brink, promising plenty but delivering very little when all the chips were in the middle.
For Armagh, in particular, recent seasons were defined by the seemingly unavoidable ability to come up short in tense situations. Penalty shoot-outs were the bane of McGeeney's time on the sideline.
Someway, somehow, they clawed back a four-point deficit against Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final and then managed to navigate past wasteful Galway in the final.
The Orchard County had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the Ulster final against Donegal in Clones – another brutal loss – but they came back and grabbed the big prize.
Will this win free Armagh from their shackles? Time will tell, but regardless. They have climbed the highest mountain now and scaled the ultimate peak in Gaelic football, and that cannot be taken away from them.
Dubs domination looks to be over
The era of Dublin domination may have come to an end. The men from the capital had a stranglehold on the modern game that was so strong talk centred on the potential need to split Dublin in two. But sport is cyclical and all good things come to an end. The betting market for the 2025 All-Ireland suggests it is a wide-open contest.
Galway tamed the beast in Croke Park in early July and, in doing so, showed the rest that it can be done. Dublin have lost some wonderful warriors in recent times, and the only certainty this winter is that more will follow towards retirement. The boys in blue simply do not hold the game in their hands any longer.
Kerry must be wondering what they left behind. They had Armagh in the palm of their hands but allowed that semi-final to slip away.
Donegal, too, must ponder the what-ifs. Jim McGuinness breathed life into the men from the Hills, and they rode the crest of that wave all the way to the last four before faltering in a narrow loss to Galway. Donegal faced Armagh three times this year without suffering a loss, and so, for them, too, there is a feeling of what might have been.
Derry will look to come back fighting in 2025 after the nightmare that became Mickey Harte's time on the Foyle, while Louth showed that the lesser lights can punch above their weight.
Armagh's journey to Sam Maguire has removed the boundaries for plenty counties. Dreaming big is possible again and we may be about to enter an era when the race for All-Ireland success in the football championship becomes wide open. There are plenty problems in modern Gaelic football, but that is surely a reason to be positive.
We will watch on with interest as the off-season brings changes on and off the field, sure to give rise to further debate, and our weekly sports content will be in pole position to assess those movements.
Enda McElhinney
Enda McElhinney is an Irish-based sportswriter, specialising in written content on the GAA, horse racing and football. He has more than a decade of experience across many publications, bringing a wealth of knowledge and betting nous to his craft. You'll find his content featured on many websites, including The Telegraph and Planet Sport. When he isn't at this desk or the racecourse, he loves to unwind on the golf course – though sometimes that can be more stressful than working!