ORCHARD COMEBACK SHOCKS KINGDOM
Richard Bullick
Armagh got their National League title defence off to the best possible start as a badly depleted team staged a spectacular comeback to claim a famous away win against All Ireland champions Kerry.
In joint mangers Joe Feeney and Darnell Parkinson’s first game at the helm, the Orchard crew came from seven points down midway through the second half in Tralee to claim an incredible 3-11 to 1-13 victory in a repeat of last April’s Division One final.
It was a proud day for Crossmaglen legend Lauren McConville, who had the richly-deserved honour of skippering her county for the first time in a long and distinguished Orchard career in the absence of regular captain Clodagh McCambridge.
McCambridge’s absence ended her remarkable run of 70 consecutive starts for Armagh stretching way back to 2018 but Armagh somehow managed to cope without their magnificent full back.
That was due in no small measure to the heroics of the country’s best goalkeeper Anna Carr, whose superb Player of the Match performance featured a series of fantastic saves which denied Kingdom goals.
The unsung Niamh Reel stepped up to top-score with four points from play, a tally matched by Blaithin Mackin’s 1-1 off the bench while Eve Lavery raised three white flags, one of them from a free before having to go off injured.
Killeavy teenager Rebecca Cunningham confidently finished to the Kerry net with her first touch in an Armagh jersey a minute after fellow sub Blaithin Mackin’s magical goal had given the Orchard fresh hope.
Cunningham put the visitors in front after great work by the relentless Emily Druse before Armagh’s 2024 Player of the Year Roisin Mulligan delivered the coup de grace with her side’s third goal in the closing stages.
Mulligan was the Orchard’s breakout star last season and several rookies have already made their mark in the opening game of this new campaign, notably Cunningham and her recent Armagh Minors team-mate Eimear McGeown.
Towering teenager McGeown was drafted into the starting team as a late change in place of former skipper Kelly Mallon, who joined the likes of McCambridge, Aimee Mackin and 2024 All Star Grace Ferguson on the sidelines.
Ulster All Star Dearbhla Coleman and Orchard captain Clodagh’s younger sister Meabh McCambridge weren’t part of Feeney and Parkinson’s first matchday squad, while both Blaithin Mackin and Niamh Henderson began on the bench.
But McGeown got her first point for Armagh just 26 seconds into her Orchard debut after Caroline O’Hanlon had won the throw-in, and the visitors twice went two up in the opening period before Kerry hit an unanswered 1-4 to lead by five at the interval.
On the afternoon she broke Cora Staunton’s record by beginning an unprecedented 24th season of adult inter-county football, O’Hanlon showed not just her invaluable experience but how her hunger remains as strong as ever at the age of 40.
Curtailed by a torn calf muscle last summer, the former All Ireland Player of the Year appears back to full fitness and she became even more influential in the closing states, taking typically composed control to steer Armagh home.
This wasn’t a game of two halves as much as the scores suggest as the orangewomen were in front after the first quarter and Kerry outscored the visitors in the third but rather a case of Armagh’s fourth quarter surge being even more productive than the Kingdom’s second.
Kerry skipper Anna Galvin extended their half-time lead just 18 seconds after the resumption but Armagh replied with points from Lavery, McGeown and the newly-introduced Blaithin Mackin before goal-scorer Siofra O’Shea kicked another free for the home team.
All Ireland final Player of the Match Kayleigh Cronin came through the middle to add another point and, although Kerry lost Jadyn Lucey to the sinbin for a bad challenge on McConville, the visitors couldn’t take advantage.
O’Hanlon landed an acute-angled free but Kerry got the next three points, though O’Shea’s long-range effort midway through the half was to be their last of the day as Armagh reeled off an unanswered 3-2 thereafter starting with Niamh Reel raising two white flags.
But it was those three Armagh goals which decided this game, getting the new Orchard regime off to a winning start ahead of this Sunday’s derby battle against newly-promoted neighbours Tyrone at St Paul’s in Lurgan (2pm).
