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After yesterdays historic Division 1 win at Croke Park, Armagh manager Greg McGonigle hopes his team can now take their success into the TG4 All-Ireland Championship and make even more progress.
“From a defensive point of view, we’d be happy with where we are at, but again we could have been possibly a little bit more clinical up front. We maybe left a couple of chances behind us, but it’s a great place to be on the 7th of April. Looking forward with stuff to prepare for coming into the Ulster championship and then the All-Ireland series,” said McGonigle.
“teams are probably going to have purple patches or you’re going to make mistakes and we say it’s always about reaction. It’s responding, it’s not about reacting and not going into ourselves. In regards of trying to get back up and get a score as soon as we can, we reacted very well to conceding an early second half.”
Armagh are definitely on the up having lost out by three points to the Kingdom in a NFL Division 2 decider in 2022 but now it's all eyes on the Championship.
Speaking at the Stormont Assembly Newry and Armagh MLA Liz Kimmins said "I'd like to congratulate the Armagh ladies on their superb win yesterday against the kingdom of Kerry in the Division 1 of the National League Final, their first ever appearance in the final and no doubt they are the pride of the county and I would safely say the pride of Ulster on their success yesterday. Ladies football is up on its hind legs, particularly in Armagh. So we are just delighted for the win that the girls have achieved and we would encourage everybody to get behind them and support ladies football in the time ahead."
Kerry joint manager Declan Quill said they did not make the most of a fortunate goal after the restart and they squandered too many chances to retain their crown.
“A fortunate goal really, but one that put us on a good path in the second half. We weren’t really able to take advantage of it. The bit of good luck you get, you’ve to build on it. It’s not something we did,” said Quill.
“We missed way too many chances to win a game. A national final, you’ve got to be very clinical. I thought Armagh were way more clinical than we were. The chances they got, they stuck away. We’ve to look back over the tape, but the amount of chances we missed was absolutely criminal really.
“We did come up here to win today. It wasn’t maybe an aim of ours to get to the final in a way, but that’s the way we ended up. When we were here, we were coming all guns blazing to win it. It just didn’t happen for us today. We’ve Munster championship to focus on now in two weeks’ time. We’ll give the girls a few nights off and we’ll reconvene next Friday night. Hopefully the bodies will be fresh and the minds will be fresh, and they’ll be ready to give the Munster championship a good go.”
Scorers - Armagh: A Mackin 1-4 (0-2f), K Mallon 0-5 (3f), N Coleman 1-0, A McCoy, N Henderson, C Doyle 0-1 each.Kerry: L Ní Mhuircheartaigh 0-7 (6f), N Ní Chonchuir, L Scanlon 1-0 each, C Murphy, H O’Donoghue 0-1 each.
ARMAGH: A Carr; G Ferguson, C McCambridge, R Mulligan; C Towe, L McConville, D Coleman; N Coleman, C O’Hanlon; E Druse, A McCoy, L Kenny; A Mackin, N Henderson, K Mallon. Subs: S Quigley for N Coleman (24), C Doyle for Druse (49), M McCambridge for Kenny (57), S Grey for McCoy (58), E Lavery for Mallon (59).
KERRY: ME Bolger; C Lynch, D Kearney, E Lynch; A O’Connell, C Murphy, K Cronin; M O’Connell, A Galvin; N Carmody, N Ní Chonchuir, L Scanlon; H O’Donoghue, E Dineen, L Ní Mhuircheartaigh. Subs: D O’Leary for NíChonchuir, C O’Brien for Kearney (both 39), A Harrington for Scanlon (44), K Brosnan for O’Donoghue (57).
Referee: Gus Chapman (Sligo).
