All-Ireland SFC final: Armagh 1-11 Galway 0-13
It was hardly going to be any other way. The teams that have spent three seasons almost incapable of being prised apart inevitably went until the dying moments of injury-time before referee Seán Hurson blew the whistle on the 2024 championship.
Armagh players celebrated with that combination of ecstasy and relief that marks the end of long sporting journeys finally reaching their destination. They were deserving winners, striking for the front in the 47th minute with a match-breaking goal and defending ferociously for the nearly half an hour that remained.
Their defensive structure was sound and made Galway work long and hard for every score – resolve typified in the nerve-twitching final minutes when Joe McElroy blocked Paul Conroy as he attempted an equaliser and the indomitable Ben Crealey stood up to Cillian McDaid, as Galway frantically raided the right wing, and performed a cool dispossession to launch a counterattack.
Both teams rattled the goalposts – Dylan McHugh desperately trying to steer a late shot at salvation over the bar and Stefan Campell attempting to seal the deal at the other end after Crealey’s turnover.
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[ Armagh 1-11 Galway 0-13: As it happenedOpens in new window ]
For a team that had been labelled and filed as unable to win in tight circumstances, this was huge vindication for Armagh. They played with composure, staying in touch with Galway when the Connacht champions threatened to take the match out of their opponents’ range.
Oisín Conaty had an excellent match, shooting 0-3 from play and working himself to a standstill. Centrefielders Niall Grimley and Crealey kept the threat of Galway’s big ball winners at bay and after a rocky start, both sides protected their kick-outs well.
Galway did not play well and will have massive regrets about this. For a long time they were in apparent control, not falling behind until the 47th-minute goal. Their slow, methodical style of play might have looked more laboured than Armagh’s but it kept them in front.
They sustained a serious setback in the 11th minute when Rob Finnerty had to leave injured and was replaced by Johnny Heaney, a different type of attacker – a rangy half forward rather than an out-and-out shooter – to Finnerty, who all season had been outperforming his higher-profile full-forward colleagues Damien Comer and Shane Walsh.
It never really happened for the latter two. Comer could neither bulldoze his way into the match nor could his team-mates activate him. It took all of half an hour for a decent ball to be dinked into the full forward and he obliged with a scoring assist for Paul Conroy, who was eventually reduced to Galway’s go-to scorer, a status Armagh easily observed and countered.
Walsh was a long way off his best – the sniper who kept Kerry at bay two years ago – and missed five shots, two frees wide and one dropped short together with an attacking mark plus a chance from play that Liam Silke should probably have taken himself.
With so many players off form, it was always going to be an uphill battle but Armagh were not the team of recent times who stumbled when doors opened. Even in May they lost a four-point lead going into the last quarter of the Ulster final.
This time they had to respond when after going in at half-time level on 0-6 each, Galway looked to be getting the upper hand. They went two ahead, 0-8 to 0-6, Conroy taking his third and a powerful break off a Heaney turnover, which Cillian McDaid finished. It looked as if the Westerners were settling into a groove but Conaty and Rian O’Neill, with one of his best, levelled matters.
The goal, only the second that Galway conceded – both to Armagh – arrived with Campbell just on the pitch. His run along the endline opened a gap and the well flighted fisted pass was met by sweeper Aaron McKay making a perfect run into the square and crashing the ball into the net.
It felt like an influential blow. A two-point deficit is not impossible at the end of the third quarter but both teams atrophied to some extent – Armagh managing just two further points to three in response.
Galway’s attacks looked all the more laboured as they failed to get any traction on the scoreboard. Eventually Céin D’Arcy, who had replaced captain Seán Kelly before the start and went on to have a good match kicking 0-3 from play, cut the margin to one, 1-9 to 0-11.
A sliding doors moment came in the 62nd minute when Walsh dropped a kickable free short and Grimley went up the other end to push the margin back to two. Four minutes later, replacement Oisín O’Neill, who had come on for the team’s injured orchestrator Rory Grugan in the 51st minute, compensated for the team loss of creativity by hoisting a killer score from under the Cusack Stand.
It will be frustrating for Galway manager Pádraic Joyce that his team, stung by the now three-points deficit, should surge to take two back through D’Arcy and McDaid.
It ended in jubilation for Armagh and Kieran McGeeney joined the exclusive club of those who have both captained and managed All-Ireland winning football teams. It has been a long road for McGeeney and few could begrudge him the joyful journey’s end.
ARMAGH: Blaine Hughes; Barry McCambridge (0-1), Aidan Forker (0-1), Paddy Burns; Joe McElroy, Tiarnan Kelly (0-1), Connaire Mackin; Niall Grimley (0-1), Ben Crealey (0-2); Aaron McKay (1-0), Rian O’Neill (0-1), Oisin Conaty (0-3); Rory Grugan, Andrew Murnin, Conor Turbitt.
Subs: Stefan Campbell for Turbitt, Ross McQuillan for Kelly (both 46 mins); Oisin O’Neill (0-1) for Grugan (51); Jarly Óg Burns for Mackin (60); Jason Duffy for Forker (76).
GALWAY: Connor Gleeson; Johnny McGrath, Seán Fitzgerald, Jack Glynn; Dylan McHugh, Liam Silke (0-1), Seán Mulkerrin; Paul Conroy (0-3), Céin Darcy (0-3); Matthew Tierney, John Maher (0-1), Cillian McDaid (0-2); Rob Finnerty (0-1, free), Damien Comer, Shane Walsh (0-2, 0-1 free).
Subs: Johnny Heaney for Finnerty (11 mins); Seán Kelly for Glynn (45); Daniel O’Flaherty for Tierney, Tomo Culhane for Comer (both 66); Kieran Molloy for Heaney (75).
Referee: Seán Hurson (Tyrone).
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