It was hard not to feel considerable sympathy for Kieran McGeeney. The same applies to his players and the rest of his management team, and the Armagh supporters… but McGeeney, teak-tough as a player and not dissimilar as a manager, is the face of the Armagh senior football team.
The RTE camera zoomed in on that familiar face in the moments before the start of the penalty shoot-out. Last Sunday’s exciting Ulster Senior Football final between Armagh and Donegal had just ended, the sides level at 0-18 apiece, after extra-time. When it comes to Armagh’s recent fortunes in tight games, we were all familiar with the script – now we waited for the detail of the about-to-be-written extra chapter.
For McGeeney & Co, the script makes for grim reading. Prior to Sunday, they had lost three major matches on penalty shoot-outs; losing out on Ulster glory, missing out on a place in an All-Ireland semi-final. It seemed at once both unimaginable and inevitable that a penalty showdown might arise again last Sunday.
When it did, McGeeney seemed to accept his fate, or rather his powerlessness. He is not known for smiling in public, but the manager actually grinned broadly as he formed a human chain with colleagues – a band of brothers – in those moments before the first penalty. No doubt there was some nervous energy at work, but it was also a wry acceptance that once again, the football Gods had Armagh’s fate in their hands.
This really was happening. Again. A county desperate for a first Ulster title in sixteen years, a manager desperate to park some silverware in a cabinet if only so he could concentrate on the real business of trying to win an All-Ireland without the unwelcome sideshow of (perhaps justified) criticism and doubt and condemnation.
No manager standing on the halfway line with his arms around anxious colleagues, his heart racing and his palms sweating can remotely influence the drama about to unfold between the black spot and the goal line. He is powerless.
It was 5-5 in a flash, some great penalties dispatched amidst the mounting tension. As ‘sudden death’ began, I couldn’t shake off the sense that Armagh were doomed again, especially as they were shooting second. And so, the almost inevitable came to pass, and Kieran McGeeney must yet again have felt as Jimmy White did in all those World Snooker finals that ended in anguish for the ‘Whirlwind’.
Donegal won 6-5 on penalties, and the RTE camera turned to their manager, Jim McGuinness, now bopping on the pitch, relieved, joyous… tiny margins once again making huge differences in sporting combat.
Celebrating Donegal supporters swarmed towards McGuinness and his team, and somewhere in the growing throng stood Kieran McGeeney, surrounded by people, but alone with his thoughts.
