O’Hagan: Prospect of facing Kerry will have sharpened Armagh minds

ARMAGH All-Ireland winner Barry O’Hagan feels the current crop will have no problem parking their gut-wrenching defeat last weekend.

While much of the narrative outside the camp sees their all-or-nothing visit to Kerry as an extremely tough draw, ‘Bumpy’ insists the playing group won’t think that.

Reflecting on their defeat to Louth, O’Hagan said the game went exactly as he thought, a 50-50 game that went all the way to the last kick.

Sam Mulroy’s late, late goal sent Louth fans into a frenzy and left Armagh beaten in the championship for the first time since their 2025 All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Kerry.

“I would say they were hurting pretty badly that evening,” O’Hagan said. “But when they got up on Monday, I would say the draw has just whetted the appetite.”

Drawing a line under the first defeat in six games, O’Hagan made the point that all the other 11 teams in the Sam Maguire race have also lost a championship game.

“As a player, when you’re looking back on your career, who wouldn’t want the chance to go to Killarney?” he added.

“To go there and play a knockout championship game at the top of your form is a brilliant opportunity.

“To me, when that draw came out, the focus would have shifted entirely to Saturday, and the Louth game would have been put to the back of the minds.”

A different opponent may not have got the juices flowing, but O’Hagan believes his former teammate Kieran McGeeney has been the key to Armagh’s bouncebackability after their previous defeats.

“Make no bones about it, it was Kieran McGeeney,” he said. “We were able to bounce back simply because of his ability to motivate a group, his ability to park it and move on.

“Whether it was a season-ending penalty shoot-out defeat or at the end of an Ulster final, I just think he just has that resilience about him.

“Whether we’d have won it, he would have done the exact same thing, and let’s get ready for the next competition.”

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