Kieran McGeeney: 'Most of it doesn’t bother me; when it affects my family, it bothers me'

Later, he admitted the negative comments aimed at him down through the years as silverware eluded him hurt his family. His clan have had a rough ride of it lately. Peter Kelly, his uncle, passed away following a fall the day before Armagh’s All-Ireland quarter-final win over Roscommon.

Going back to the 1990s, McGeeney’s sister Sinead has been battling with Multiple Sclerosis and Crohn’s Disease. After Saturday’s victory, she allowed herself an outburst on X/Twitter. “I know I pride myself in being a lady. But just this once…fuck the haters. I love Armagh and I love my big bro.”

Sinead’s comment gave a little insight into how criticism has impacted his family. “I’ve no doubt I’ll get more,” smiled McGeeney wryly .”The hardest thing about those is for my family. Even though I’ve only one arm (his shoulder operation earlier this year put him in a sling), most of them (critics) are still reluctant to talk to my face about those particular type of things.

“Most of it doesn’t bother me; when it affects my family, it bothers me. I got it as a player – and it was usually from the same boys.” 

Nothing is won yet, as McGeeney stressed, but the county’s fifth ever All-Ireland final appearance is something to cherish. It was a long time coming for McGeeney as manager, never mind the county but he never felt like quitting.

“I remember saying it in here (Croke Park interview room) before about whatever it is, 15 or 20 journalists and saying who is number one? Who hasn’t won a prize? Does that mean the rest of youse are shit? We all have a spectrum we exist on. And sometimes what success looks like in one county is not what success will look like in another.

“And one All Ireland in 140 years, whether people like it or not, is what we have. We have had one national title in the National League. We have 14 Ulster titles, half of which was won by one team, and the other seven were won by two teams. So it’s not an illustrious thing. You are trying to get people to understand that.

“But listen, I have a lot of fans out there that like to throw stuff at me. Sure what can I do? As I said before, it’s obviously my sparkling personality that seems to entice them to talk about me. No doubt one or two of them will have to hold it to the next one and hoping we get beat.

“I have said this before, most of the criticism comes from past players. It’s very rarely a journalist. Most of the people here talk about the game and yes, we make a shitload of mistakes and you get one or two bad calls. There are things when you look back you would have changed one or two things.” 

Walking around the field afterwards, McGeeney and Donaghy were clearly offering instructions that there was still one more game to go. Doubt has been turned into belief, Armagh are a team unbeaten in regulation championship football in over two years.

“When you set out your stall at the beginning of the year, you’re trying to get fellas to think about what they’re capable of. That’s not always an easy thing. Capability is one thing, the capacity to do it is another. Getting them to understand the difference, to put in the hard work to have the capacity to show your capabilities is a big part of it.

“It used to be you were put out early in June and Kerry and Dublin would play until September. If you tried to go back four weeks early to train everybody was giving out, ‘Kerry and Dublin don’t do that’ – even though they had three-and-a-half months of the summer getting that work together.

“Trying to show the fellas over the years that you don’t become the best without that work, whether it’s Jim Gavin or Jim McGuinness, all of those teams are extremely well-conditioned and extremely well-coached. That takes time and effort.”