Kieran McGeeney insists that the incident before a recent challenge match against Dublin – which saw Davey Byrne suffer serious facial injuries and spend two nights in hospital – did not overshadow the build up to their qualifier loss to Galway.
McGeeney saw his side bow out of the championship with a 1-12 to 0-12 loss to the Tribesmen at the Athletic Grounds.
Byrne was unavailable for selection for Dublin's Leinster final win over Westmeath due to the injuries and Dublin manager Jim Gavin said last week that the incident was disappointing.
Gavin said: "Regrettably, an incident took place before a recent challenge game against Armagh.
"It's disappointing because I think discipline would be a core philosophy of both management teams.
"Subsequent to that both players have spoken and they regret what happened and both players are now concentrating on their inter-county careers.”
And a clearly disappointed McGeeney echoed Gavin’s comments when asked about the subject by RTÉ Sport.
"Two people got involved, they spoke, everybody moves on"
“I think Jim already answered that about 20 times for everybody,” he said.
“We both kind of said that discipline is a core philosophy of both teams. Two people got involved, they spoke, everybody moves on.
“Like that, most of the stuff that’s reported was nothing near the truth of what happened so you just have to leave it behind and move on.”
Asked if he felt it should be just left at that, the former Kildare manager, in his first year in charge of the Orchard County, replied: “Everybody does, it’s just...what more would you like to do? I don’t really understand the question.”
On the defeat to the visitors, McGeeney was left to rue Damien Comer’s goal.
He said: “It’s a disappointing result but that’s the way it goes. I suppose we’d be disappointed with the sloppiness of the goal, it came into the square and it wasn’t dealt with.
“We’re probably disappointed that we didn’t take some of our own chances but we have to be more clinical in front of the nets. Twelve points aren’t going to win against quality.”
Kevin Walsh oversaw Galway’s first away qualifier win since 2001 – the year they last won the All-Ireland - and proposed that the away draw actually worked in their favour in the end.
Walsh's side will face Derry next Saturday. Speaking about the win at the weekend, he said: “When the draw came out of the bowl it was always going to be a tough one.
“We were all looking for a home venue and maybe then the pressure was on Armagh, the fact that they did get the home venue. Maybe [going away from home is] a great way of focusing the mind for a group of players.”
