BURNS: WE’D LOVE TO WIN IT FOR McGEENEY
ARMAGH defender Paddy Burns admits the players are desperate to win an Ulster title for long-serving boss Kieran McGeeney.
‘Geezer’ is in his 10th year in charge of the county, whom he captained to their sole All-Ireland title in 2002, but silverware has proved elusive
Last year’s Ulster final loss to Derry after a dramatic penalty shootout was as close as the current team and their manager have come to lifting the Anglo Celt for the first time since 2008.
They will attempt to right the wrongs in Sunday’s decider against Donegal at Clones.
“We were very close and probably should have won it in normal time,” accepts defender Burns.
“As it turned out it was a very good Derry team, but it’s not often you get an opportunity to undo it or give yourself a chance to undo it.
Force
“That’s definitely a big thought for us. Lets go out and give ourselves a shot at doing what we should have done last year.”
When asked whether winning it for their manager was a serious driving force, Burns claimed: “Absolutely.
“You always want to go out and win something for him because while we put a lot of time in as players, being an inter-county manager is such a difficult job.
“For the time he has put in to us, everything he’s done for us, how well he looks after us, the least we can do is get him an Ulster title.
“And we’ll be going out to do that for him, absolutely.”
Burns missed last year’s Ulster Championship through injury and feels he has earned the right to have a shot at winning a major trophy.
Like more senior players like Rory Grugan, Aidan Forker and
Stefan Campbell, the 31-year-old is part of an Armagh team that has knocked on the door for a while now, so is their time?
“That has always been the question, you always assume that it is your time,” Burns says.
“We are getting to the point where it is time we did something but all we can do is our best on the day.
“We have come up against some great teams and some great performances over the last four or five years that have put us out by the odd point or penalties here and there.
“We will just go out and give it our all to ensure this is our time, but it is a difficult animal we are coming up against, so the game isn’t going to go your way all the time.
“You have to be able to respond whenever they have their purple patch. No team is going to go 70-minutes without having a good spell, so you just have go in knowing that you have to try and limit how effective they are when they have their spell and then try and respond.”
Armagh did just that in a last gasp win over Down in the Ulster semi-final two weeks ago.
Subs Oisin O’Neill, Aidan Nugent and
Jason Duffy kicked the last three points, Duffy’s winner coming deep into stoppage time, in a dogged 0-13 to 2-6 win over the Mournemen.
The main positive Armagh could take from a below-par display, when none of their six starting forwards scored from play, was that they had found a way to drag themselves over the winning line.
“Down, to their credit, went out with a gameplan and executed it very well and it almost came off for them,” Burns admitted.
“We maybe tried to force the last pass or had poor wides and it became that game of a dogfight. So, were we happy with the performance? No, we didn’t do a lot of the basic things that we are good at.”