ABSENTEES MAKE McGEENEY’S JOB HARDER
HAVING just lost six valued members of his squad, Kieran McGeeney accepts Armagh will struggle to make it back to the All-Ireland quarterfinals this summer. Star forward Jamie Clarke is one of three Crossmaglen players to make themselves unavailable along with James Morgan and Oisín O’Neill, while Stefan Campbell, Ciaran O’Hanlon and the retired Ciaran McKeever are also absent. The withdrawals are bound to massively disrupt their bid to reach the Super 8s – as the manager acknowledged after Wednesday night’s season-opening Dr McKenna Cup win over Down in Newry. ‘Fellas have got different priorities in their lives and you have to respect that. ‘There’s definitely a change of culture with the players and we’re getting back to days where they’re proud of wearing the jersey. ‘We’re still in Division 3 and we still want to do well in the Ulster Championship and push on and try and get to the last eight again, but we’ve a mountain to climb considering the talent that’s gone.’ One positive is the return of playmaker Míceál McKenna, who spent last year in Australia, but there is a sense of frustration that absenteeism is again dominating the agenda at the start of the fourth year of his five-year term. ‘The first year [2015] we were doing rightly and we hit two top teams — Donegal and Galway — and didn’t get the Championship run we’d have liked. ‘Then you lose the likes of Caolan Rafferty, Kevin Dyas, Jamie Clarke and even coming up to the [2016] Championship we lost Mark Shields and Ethan Rafferty. ‘Last year we started getting more back again, we didn’t have too many injuries and were rebuilding. ‘But there’s a core group there that are probably more mature — the likes of Aidan [Forker], Rory [Grugan], Bug [Stephen Sheridan], Charlie [Vernon] and Brendy [Donaghy], they all seem to be pushing on and getting stronger.’