One thing of note even though it didn’t come back to bite us.
Every long standing Armagh fan has witnessed the number of late leads we have given up so in that context Rians long feee Which beggan caught and started their last attack was unforgivable.
How have we not trained these match scenarios properly. That ball had to be played short and possession retained.
Monaghan could easily have worked a goal on that last play and once again it would have been completely our own doing.
That passage of play annoyed me. We continually talk about learning but there was no evidence of it there.
Yea agree so naive just play the ball back and run down the clock , especially when we have a keeper that’s really comfortable on the ball , at least we got away with it and it happened in game one .
Positives our purple patch in the ‘premier quarter’ really won the game , this is an excellent trait , the Dublin team that dominated often had a below par first half and then put the foot on the teams in the 3rd quarter , however they didn’t let teams back in like we do …. but the positive is we didn’t win very many tight games in the past 2 years so this another good habit to get into. Also none of our ‘big players’ were at full throttle personally I don’t know how Murphy gave Stefan the motm award , however he did step up with the two late scores brilliantly taken but for most of the game he looked a frustrated figure ,Jarly Og , Rian , Nugent looked like they needed to shake off the cobwebs although you could fault their effort ,
Personally the goal keeper is a mixed bag for me high reward high risk , if I was in the opposition I would shoot at goal on sight as I don’t think Ethan is a good shot stopper , or has the discipline in One on One situations, or even like last night with the penalty, it looked like it was pure panic ,also there will probably be an error a game in the kick outs , in the bigger matches this could be the different, however he did score a great point , threaded through a beautiful pass to grugan in the build up to another point, and is a fantastic option in breaking down the blanket defence.
But although it doesn’t sound like it it’s a really positive start against a side who have always given us trouble , bigger tests ahead but , with more players coming in I feel we are in a good place . Mayo were good last night but with a new defence and home advantage I think we should beat them , which we haven’t done in a while , it should be a great match , Kevin mcStay will be looking to say hello to the Mallon brothers…..