Just reading some of Oisin McConville's comments before the game and I think he had it pretty much nailed on.
"They should win," the 2002 All-Ireland winner said of the Westmeath game.
"Therein lies the problem though. If there's any sense of complacency, any hangover from the Derry game, which no doubt there will be, we're talking about human beings here.
"That was a bit of a setback for Armagh. There's no point in saying any different. The fact that they haven't got silverware now probably increases the pressure on them a little bit."
He added: "This is a good game to get them back on track. I don't expect Armagh start quickly but I'd expect them to get the job done."
I think that I'm as guilty as everyone else of forgetting that these guys aren't robots. They are human beings. They will have been devastated after the loss to Derry, especially with how it happened. The mental toll that would take on you in a sporting sense would be immense and one that not many people can relate to, as so few of us play elite level sport. To think that they could just put it behind them, move on and produce a top class display yesterday, is naive. They would have been feeling pressure and uncertainty going into this game. That doesn't excuse some of what we saw yesterday, but if you put it into context, you can see why they struggled in the second half.
First half I thought we very good for the most part. We left an easy 1-5 behind in the first half (Rian's goal effort and a free he dragged wide, Ben Crealy should have hand passed over the bar instead of trying to set up Duffy, Soupy and Grugan dropped easy chances short and Nugent had a bad wide), which would have put us in total control. These chances all came before their goal, which happened after a great turnover by Rian on the wing, then burning their defence for pace before dropping a bad shot short from a tight angle when a better option should have been taken, which they the counter attacked from. So in this regard, I'd argue that we did start well, did show purpose and attacking intent, saw diving blocks, created turnovers, but we let ourselves down by not converting our chances. If a team is mentally fragile, then those things will weigh even heavier on you. You have the mental baggage from the Derry defeat, you're in a must win game at home against a team you should beat, you've been entirely on top, carved out some good openings with some good play, but you haven't taken your chances and now they've gone and scored a goal out of nowhere and all of a sudden the pressure is really on. That is going to have an effect on you.
I think we saw that pressure in effect in the second half. Westmeath were more than happy to hold onto the ball and frustrate the team and the fans. The more time they had the ball, with clock rolling by, the fans were getting rightly nervous and agitated, which was feeding onto the pitch, which naturally has an effect on the team. That's when you need strong leadership from those on the pitch to start making things happen, work harder to force mistakes and create turnovers and get the fans up for it. That's where I think we were poor in the second half. We were too passive in not putting them under pressure to get the ball back. Westmeath had that buffer of a goal and whenever we'd score a few points, to draw within a score, they would come up with one, which would set us back again. I'd argue that all of this has a spiralling effect. When we did win the ball back, we'd try to force the play and coughed up possession. The more that happens, the more it will happen. Throw in the pressure they were under to win, the mental doubts from the Derry game, then I can understand why it was a nervy performance. While the second half was bad, I can see a lot of contributing factors to it. I give them massive credit for finding the courage to win the game. The likes of Murnin, Mackin, O'Neill and Rafferty produced some big plays to win us the game. With all that went on before this game and when you look at Oisin McConville's comments, I think the game panned out this way.
One thing that I did find worrying though was the two goal kicks at the end, which were as bad as you'd see at this level. Again, pressure and doubt forces mistakes and those were two really bad ones, that should have cost us. Hopefully we are in a better place going into Omagh next week. We know we can match Tyrone. We won yesterday. The Derry defeat is done now and our season has moved on. Tyrone lost their first game and are under pressure to win. We hate the sight of them and that alone will bring the performance levels up. There are doubts around this team, as there are with most, because the likelihood is that one of Mayo, Kerry, Galway or Dublin will win the All Ireland, but that's not say that we can't go deep into the Championship, cause a few shocks and show that we are a top team on our day and have struggles like most teams do.
as Armagh looked like they were the division 3 team. However, lucky or not, a win is a win and we'll take it and move on.
