Declan Bogue

FIRST, SOME NUMBERS.

For the past decade, Kieran McGeeney has been Armagh manager.

It took five attempts to get his first win in the Ulster championship.

They have won just seven games out of 16 games in that competition. That’s a winning percentage of 43%.

They have not won an Ulster title.

And yet, consider this.

They played Fermanagh in the 2018 Ulster championship. They lost 0-12 to 0-7. It was McGeeney’s fourth attempt at an Ulster championship game and his fourth straight defeat. Tactically, Armagh were hopelessly out of their depth.

Most managers would depart at that stage. Most players would hang around to see if another man was getting the job and, if not, quietly slip away.

Armagh did things differently. From the team that lost to Fermanagh, Blaine Hughes, Paddy Burns, Aaron McKay, Connaire Mackin, Greg McCabe, Mark Shields, Ben Crealey, Aidan Forker, Rory Grugan, Niall Grimley, Ethan Rafferty, Andrew Murnin, Niall Rowland, Joe McElroy and Jemar Hall all remain.

Drill down further into their panel of the team and the injuries that kept some out and consider that Stefan Campbell (32), James Morgan (31), Ciaron O’Hanlon (29) and Oisin O’Neill (26) all had played before that landmark loss. And all remain today.

19 players of the current panel, six years on.

By way of contrast, Fermanagh made that year’s Ulster final. They were up and coming, under Rory Gallagher. But of the 20 that played that night, just five remain. Cullen brothers Lee and Ché along with Declan McCusker are still central figures, Aidan Breen has been battling injury all year and James McMahon only recently rejoined the panel after a spell in Australia.

Player retention and keeping everyone on board is something that McGeeney, flawed as he and we all are, is frankly amazing at.

In Kildare he wrung more seasons out of Dermot Earley than anyone might have expected. The end for him came at a county board meeting when delegates voted 29 to 28 in favour of ending his six-year term in charge.

The backlash was instant.

“58 club delegates who have never seen us train went into a room tonight and decided what was best for us. They totally disregarded our opinions over the last couple of weeks,” wrote Emmet Bolton on Twitter.

‘It’s a disgraceful way to treat a man who put so much heart and effort into Kildare football. I’m gutted that Kieran is gone.

“The effort that he put in over the last six years is beyond belief. It was a privilege to learn and work under him.”

Other comments from Earley, Brian Flanagan and Doyle followed before a joint statement from the panel noting they were 100% behind McGeeney. There was mutiny in the air.

Set that in context with the Tyrone panel that won the All-Ireland title in 2021, who were subsequently decimated by the loss of key players. The likes of Mark Bradley, Ronan O’Neill and Tiernan McCann might not have been making the starting team, but their loss from the training pitch led to a dip in standards of which they are just recovering from.

Armagh’s climb to the last two Ulster finals has involved painfully slow, inching progress. But they have got there all the same.

In the meantime, McGeeney has kept going. Occasionally, he has taken a sledgehammer to his backroom team, and built it back up again. Nowadays, Conleith Gilligan, Ciaran McKeever and Kieran Donaghy are the inner sanctum of selectors.

It’s a fairly big sample size of the last ten years, but occasionally his temper has gotten the better of him – rows with referees and media were notin frequent, and the position he adapted in the immediate aftermath of their defeat to Galway in 2022 and the on-pitch brawl was plainly senseless.

But through it all, he has retained devotion from players.

After Kildare ended, he came back to Armagh as a coach under Paul Grimley for the 2014 season.

He also was brought into the Tipperary hurlers’ backroom team by Eamon O’Shea.

Performance coach, mental skills, confidant, call it what you like, but McGeeney was there to hear the players and form relationships.

A year afterwards, Seamus Callanan summed up his impact: “Kieran is very good and you’d have massive respect for someone who’s had the career that Kieran had, the experience of the man and the knowledge of the man. He knows best, he’s gone through what you’re going through.

Seamus Callanan. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

“He was a massive benefit to me and gave me great confidence and a great sense that I could work on my own visualisation and mentality towards what’s going on. It was very, very helpful.”

At the recent Ulster championship launch, the veteran Aidan Forker knocked back any suggestions that 2024 is an ‘Ulster Or Bust’ scenario for McGeeney, instead preferring if he remained on anyway.

“Why would Kieran not be there next year when we are a Division 1 team?” Forker stated.

“Look at all those teams, an All Black team under (Steve) Hansen, they lost the World Cup but they didn’t get rid of him; they said ‘You take the learnings from being at that level and bring us forward.’

“So the same sort of model – why would we get rid of all what Kieran knows about the group and the players he helped to create alongside everyone who has supported him and not go at it together? And to me, it should be Kieran’s decision.”

“The thing about Kieran is, he just makes you want to play,” says former Armagh goalkeeper, Paddy Morrison who played for a number of seasons under McGeeney.

The connection between McGeeney and Morrison is an enduring one. When McGeeney started out at county football, it was Paddy’s father, the colourful and inimitable John ‘Beefer’ Morrison, who was joint manager along with Jim McCorry.

Paddy Morrison. Presseye / Philip Magowan/INPHO Presseye / Philip Magowan/INPHO / Philip Magowan/INPHO

Beefer’s taste for lateral thinking rubbed off on many, including McGeeney and his own son.

Paddy played midfield for Armagh Harps until he was 24 and then abruptly finished up. He enjoyed the high life instead.

And then at the age of 30, he went back playing for the club in goals, instantly becoming obsessed with the art and craft of goalkeeping.

“When I came back, the Harps had no goalkeeping coach, so I did it for myself. I knew I had about eight years left and my dedication carried me some of the way,” he says.

“And then I got the (county) call up, it amazed me as I thought my boat had sailed. I went on and took on everything on board. I even ended up as the Team Sheriff, enforcing all the team rules, keeping an eye on training gear and time-keeping.”

So take us inside the Armagh camp. Why does it appear to so united, with so few premature retirements?

“The passion that he has for Armagh and for football . . . He gives everything for the teams he is with and he makes you want to better yourself,” explains Morrison.

“He tells you where the bar is, where you need to be a he is a great motivator, to make you want to better yourself as a player and as a person.

“He’s very much interested in what you are doing outside of football, if there is something he could do to help and push you on, in business and personal goals.

“It goes back to that great phrase that ‘players do not care what you know, until they know that you care.’

“That’s something that Kieran likes to show to his players.”

How did he show it to Morrison?

In 2017, he had a bowel obstruction. Being blunt, it could very well have killed him. McGeeney spent hours by his hospital bedside.

His bowel was close to perforating. If it had, the doctors told him he had a 20% chance of survival.

McGeeney kept him company for hours. When he left, he handed him a book with a fairly blatant title and theme, ‘How To Make People Do What You Want.’

He reminded him that it would help him for when he came back into the Armagh squad, another angle on organising his defence.

He never did make it quite back. The arrival of Blaine Hughes made it more difficult for Morrison.

But he never forgot how McGeeney made him feel.