February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Armagh 1-12
Kerry 0-14
They came armed with only heart where Kerry had art, with graft where Kerry had craft, with steel where Kerry had style. And yet, although it didn’t look likely as the sides took their halftime repose in the bowels of the Hogan Stand, in the end what they had was what they needed. By afternoon’s end they proved that not even Mozart could stop a tsunami.
For this was a victory, indeed a title, that owed more to sheer desire than anything else. That’s not to diminish the amount of skill, effort and thinking that went into Armagh 2002. It’s just to say that when it came down to brass tacks Sunday and nothing could separate them and Kerry in terms of actual footballing ability, all Armagh had to fall back on was the fact that they wanted to be All-Ireland champions more than Kerry did. It’s one thing to say you want to win. It’s another thing entirely to realize you actually mean it.
And they meant it. Nobody, perhaps, meant it more than their captain, Kieran McGeeney, who did nothing at all to disabuse people of the notion that he is the most intense, most committed footballer to appear on the GAA radar in years. His speech afterward was not eloquent, nor did anything approaching a joke insinuate its way into proceedings. What it was, though, was an emotional, impassioned cry from his very depths. He spoke of how the men who surrounded him would be his friends for life. His voice barely holding together, he spoke of his respect for those he’d vanquished and of how he knew they would not begrudge him his day. And he was right, they won’t. Class can’t but be gracious when bested by class.
For all that, the settling of the dust must now bring serious soul searching in Kerry. Armagh’s desire, ferocious though it was, was hardly unexpected. They didn’t pull any rabbit out of the hat. Joe Kernan didn’t bring along any secret playbook. Kerry knew they’d face a team who wanted to suffocate, a team who wanted to strangle. When they reached halftime four points ahead, Kerry knew that Armagh would first try to staunch the flow of possession and points that Kerry were enjoying before setting about reigning them in. And yet, P