O’Mullan: All eyes on the championship after league success

By Shaun Casey

GAINING an immediate return to Division Two was the ultimate goal of the league for Armagh, says manager PJ O’Mullan, and they achieved that on Saturday by getting their hands on the Division 3A title.

The Orchard County had won all four of their league encounters before the decider and proved too strong for Roscommon lat the weekend, winning by six in the end.

O’Mullan’s girls fell out of Division Two last year, finishing bottom of the pile, but the Antrim native feels that playing at that higher standard of camogie has improved his team.

“We had a bad season in Division Two last year and got demoted,” O’Mullan explained. “We were close on a few occasions but just couldn’t get over the line so the immediate thing was to get back to Division Two again.

“Thankfully, we had a good campaign, and we came through all our games. Everybody in the whole panel got a match and we got over the line on Saturday, so job done.

“There’s no doubt that playing at a higher level makes you a better team. Even in challenge games, we’d always look to play teams that are better than us and who will probably beat us but the only way to get better is playing against stronger opposition.

“I would say last year probably did stand to a lot of the girls and the new girls and younger girls, it’s good to bring them in as well and let them see what it’s all about.”

Sinead Quinn was on fire against the Rossies and top scored for the eventual winners, hitting 1-4, but O’Mullan insists they are much more than a one-player team and they can look to anyone across the pitch for leadership.

“Sinead is a top player and she would step into most teams, but the good thing is that some days if it’s not working out for her, somebody else usually steps in,” he added.

“We have plenty of good forwards but the pleasing thing for me this year has actually been the defence, it’s been excellent. We’re not conceding too much, I think Tyrone got 2-10 and that was the biggest score against us this year.

“Once they’re doing their job, we just have to get the ball into the forwards and you look at the forwards that we have – you’ve got Sinead, Niamh Forker, Rachael Trainor, Ciara Hill, Corinna Doyle, Eimear Smyth, you could list eight or nine.”

It’s onto the Ulster Championship now, with a semi-final date against Down coming up in two weeks’ time, but Armagh, who’s u-16 and Minor sides have reached All-Ireland finals, are already beginning to turn their attention towards the All-Ireland series.

Armagh have contested three of the last five All-Ireland Junior finals since last winning it in 2020, and suffered a nine-point defeat at the hands of Laois last season at Croke Park.

“We play Down in Ulster and to be total honest, it’s not on our radar. We’re in the Senior Championship and we acquitted ourselves well last year against Derry but Down are coming from a position of playing well against Division 1B teams.

“They’re physically stronger and a bit further down the line from us. We’ll go out and we’ll give it a lash but we’re not even training this week. We’ve a week off and we’ll come back on Sunday and we’ll do a bit.

“We’ll play the Ulster Championship match and give it the respect it’s due but it’s more the All-Ireland campaign that would be the next big thing on our radar.

“We mentioned the All-Ireland at a meeting at the start of the year, but we parked it until after the league. We did want to get promoted again and thankfully that’s been done now.

“The All-Ireland campaign was mentioned after the match on Saturday and when we get back in after the Ulster match, we’ll address it properly and there’s no doubt, it’s at the top of our list.

“It’s what we want to do. We want to improve on last year and try to win a final. There’s a lot of games and a lot can happen between now and then, so we’ll just take it one game at a time and see where that takes us.”