RTÉ Sport analyst Enda McGinley has said that Armagh cannot allow their season's aspirations to suffer from the tunnel vision of delivering a long-awaited Ulster title.
The Orchard County last lifted the Anglo Celt Cup in 2008 under Peter McDonnell and since then, they’re the only county in the province who haven’t reached a final with Tyrone, Donegal, Monaghan, Cavan and Derry all lifting titles in the meantime while Down, Antrim and Fermanagh have lost out in finals.
Despite some patchy Division 1 form, with Saturday’s loss to Galway leaving them in the relegation mire this Sunday as they travel to Tyrone, they will still enter the Ulster championship as one of the favourites.
A preliminary round draw means that they’ll have to navigate Antrim, Cavan and the winners of Donegal and Down to reach the final and claim one of the All-Ireland round-robin seeding places on offer, and McGinley said that is something manager Kieran McGeeney will have to keep in mind.
"The whole weighting of the provincial championship, I can see why it is being built up as that's vital for Armagh," he told the RTÉ GAA Podcast.
"For Ulster teams, it’s wee bit different in Leinster, Connacht, Munster because the draw this year is slightly different. Those top one or two seeds, which are lovely to get going into the group championship, for most of the big teams they can plan to get them.
"In Ulster it is honestly such a minefield. As a player starting out and you're in the first round of the championship and you’ve maybe Derry or Fermanagh or Armagh and you’ve three rounds, it’s a lottery to see who is getting to the final.
"You can’t really be depending on those one or two seeds and if you do get there, all the opponents that have dropped out, they haven't gone away and they’re sitting preparing for the round-robin stage.
"In Ulster to go absolutely all out to get through those three massive championship games, which are massive occasions, huge crowds, winning provincial titles, huge celebrations and then you’re bang, into a round-robin competition where the other teams have been knuckling down and training flat out in preparation for this."
McGinley won three All-Ireland titles with Tyrone and only one of those came off the back of an Ulster title.
He understands the desire for silverware in the Orchard County, but he feels that the new All-Ireland format is another reason why short-sightedness must be avoided.
"The old traditional logic is Armagh need to be winning that provincial title this year in terms of if they're wanting to push on from last year – they ran Galway to penalties and Galway got to the All-Ireland final and weren't a kick in the ass off Kerry.
"Armagh can be thinking of an All-Ireland. That sounds foolish at this place to say it, but for McGeeney the approach to trying to win an All-Ireland is slightly different than the approach to try win an Ulster championship and I don’t think the relationship between an Ulster Championship winner and an All-Ireland, with the new campaign the way it is....it’ll be worse for Ulster teams more so maybe than other teams.
"You get put out in an Ulster first round or semi-final, a narrow defeat against a good team, you’re not a million miles away. You get three, four weeks to get your head down away from the spotlight and then you’re into the key part of the year, that round-robin league."
Armagh’s league results have been disappointing with just five points collected in six games, and McGeeney has had to endure criticism of their tactics with the players attacking at a slower place.
There was supporter frustration at their reluctance to test Galway goalkeeper under the high ball on Saturday night despite profiting from a goal through that method as goalkeeper Ethan Rafferty saw his long-range effort squirt past Galway counterpart Connor Gleeson.
McGinley doesn’t think it would take much to change their approach, but he has called on McGeeney to leave star forward Rian O’Neill closer to goal with the Crossmaglen attacker failing to impact play as much this season in a deeper role.
"I don't think teams need a massive turn of the dial to move from a more defensive footing to more of an attacking footprint.
"Armagh last year and in the previous couple of years, it’s been really notable that they’ve had loads of runners coming from very, very deep. The full-back line has been bombing up the pitch, their wing half-backs have been really, really bombing up the pitch.
"Very, very attacking whenever they are on the ball. Balls are going in, Rian O’Neill tended to stay in a wee bit closer to goal.
"They’ve Andrew Murnin in there who is excellent, but you just think the same way as Mayo have with Aidan O’Shea, having someone like Rian O’Neill in there attracts so much attention from the opposition.
"I think the [intent] on the other players, in terms of how attacking they are being, isn’t there this year and it was last year.
"I don’t think that’s a particularly hard thing to put back into them so I wouldn’t be overly worried.
"I think they’ve got spooked a wee bit by the number of goal chances they coughed up to Galway last year, and it ended up costing them in the All-Ireland championship. They’re trying to sure themselves up at the back."
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