By Niall Gartland

ARMAGH ladies have a brand new management team this year – though that doesn’t quite tell the fully story as they brace themselves for this Sunday’s Divison One opener at home to Waterford.

Leading the line is Greg McGonigle, a Derry native who enjoyed a hugely successful season in charge of the Orchard ladies in 2024 before stepping down. He led the team to a historic Division One title success and added to it an Ulster crown.

That’s without mentioning his exploits at club level with Clann Éireann, who won back-to-back Ulster Senior Championship titles in 2024 and 2025 before stepping down to fully focus on his second stint at Armagh.

So there’s no doubting his qualifications for the gig. He knows the Armagh ladies scene inside out and back to front and he’s confident that the younger group of girls coming through the ranks have the ability to gel with a golden generation of players.

Speaking last Friday, he said: “There’s probably not much happening in the county that I don’t know about – we trained on Tuesday, had a challenge match against Antrim, I was up watching Armagh minors playing Dublin, then we played Mayo away in a challenge match. I watched two college games on Monday and Wednesday, so you could be out of the house seven days a week for football if you wanted to.

“The girls’ attitude has been top class since we came back in. We’re trying to push on the high standard that’s already there, and hopefully push on from our championship showing last year.”

Name-checking just some of the younger players to keep a close eye on in the weeks and months to come, McGonigle added: “There’s a young girl Alana Donnelly from Ballyhegan in the squad, she didn’t play underage but I’ve seen her in Ballyhegan playing a game and she’s really promising.

“It’s my first time working with Lara Marsden, and she’s also someone that’s been going really well in training. Molly Loughran has been carrying a knock, but she’s really stepped up to senior county level as well.

“I think the younger girls coming in has maybe freshened up the squad and given everyone a push. The girls are training really hard and that’s all we can ask for at this point in the season.”

On the other side of the experience spectrum, McGonigle has given Caroline O’Hanlon time to decide whether she wants to throw in her lot for another season in the orange and white.

Their Division One campaign gets underway at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds against Waterford – a tough enough assignment but that’s always going to be the case in the top flight.

“Waterford are a very good side but sometimes you have to wait until the first league match until you know what everyone has at their disposal. They’ve been building and two teams have recent experience of winning the Munster Club Championship – Comeagh Rangers and Ballymacarbry, which shows the quality of ladies football in the county.”

McGonigle has brought with him as part of his backroom team Darren Swift, Paddy McNally, Fergal Duffy and Antrim’s Cathy Carey on strength and conditioning, a key performer on the Moneyglass team that reached the All-Ireland Senior Club Championship final.

“I coached Cathy back in my Jordanstown days and the girls love her. There’s a difference in the ability of men and women in terms of lifting weights. Having a female within the management team was on of my targets. Cathy has played at the very highest levels and you saw how influential she was this year with Moneyglass. She knows all about what it takes to compete at this level.”