Armagh 0-16 Fermanagh 0-11
They lived up to just about every pre-season prediction by capping promotion from Division Three with the title outright but Kieran McGeeney wants more from his Armagh team.
The Orchard County eased past Fermanagh with eight points in either half, though it was far from a perfectly balanced display to sign off on the National League.
Armagh wasted too many chances for McGeeney’s liking, including several good goal opportunities.
Their next outing is a glamour Ulster quarter-final clash with holders Donegal or old rivals Tyrone on June 14 and they will have to be better to stage a Championship coup.
“Between shots and wides and hitting the post, we were well over 10 in terms of missed chances, well over it,” said manager McGeeney. “I would be disappointed in our point taking too.
“In the first 10 minutes, we hit the post, two dropped short and we hit two wides as well as a fumble in front of the nets. That’s five scores which should have been handy that we didn’t take. So I would argue the point that we had a lot of chances that we didn’t take. You shouldn’t be missing from five or six yards out.
“We’d be happy with a lot of what we did but just a wee bit unhappy in terms of the overall performance. But Fermanagh are a good team, they were unbeaten until the last game in the league so it was good to win with 14 men and not play at our best.”
Red card
Armagh lost experienced defender Finian Moriarty to a 26th minute red card. It followed his second caution for an apparent lunge that brought a Fermanagh player to ground.
“It was unlucky,” claimed McGeeney. “You could see from the replay that someone was holding on to Finn’s arm as he was going down.
“It’s hard, like, I struggle sometimes just with understanding stuff. He had two fouls, red card. Andrew Murnin must have been fouled six times in at full-forward, no card. As I say, sometimes I just can’t understand this stuff but maybe there’s other men who can.”
After a quiet first quarter, Armagh found their range and added seven points to lead 0-8 to 0-6 at half-time.
Tony Kernan top-scored with six frees and Armagh opened up a double scores 0-12 to 0-6 lead by the 45th minute.
It wasn’t vintage football though, with four decent goal opportunities wasted and two thirds of Armagh’s points coming from frees until things opened up in the last seven minutes.
Armagh: N Geoghegan; A Mallon, C Vernon, M Murray; M Shields, F Moriarty, J Morgan; E Rafferty (0-3, 0-3f), A Forker (0-1); T Kernan (0-6, 0-6f), K Dyas (0-1), C O'Hanlon (0-1); J Clarke (0-2), A Murnin, M McKenna. Subs: C McKeever for McKenna (h/t), E McVerry for Forker (47), S Harold (0-2) for Murnin (59), G McParland for Rafferty (62), C Rafferty for O'Hanlon (66). Fermanagh: T Treacy; M Jones, T Daly, M O'Brien; D McCusker, R McCluskey, N Cassidy; R Jones, R O'Callaghan; B Mulrone, R Corrigan (0-1), D McCusker; T Corrigan (0-3), S Quigley (0-7, 0-6f, 0-1 45), C Flaherty. Subs: D Kille for Daly (h/t), A Breen for McCusker (54), C Jones for R Corrigan (56), Darren McQuade for Flaherty (61), C Cullen for O'Callaghan (71). Referee: D O'Mahoney (Tipperary).
