McGeeney: Armagh’s safety battle “massive”

WITH one game in the National League left to play, Armagh can take a giant leap towards Division One safety with a win over Derry on Sunday at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds, and boss Kieran McGeeney says his side intend on doing just that.

The All-Ireland champions earned promotion to Division One last season, along with Donegal, and relegation 12 months later would feel like a massive backward step for McGeeney and his team.

Derry have already suffered relegation to Division Two, guaranteed to finish at the bottom of the table with just one point to show for their efforts so far, so they have nothing to play for this weekend bar pride.

“It’s a massive game and Derry, outside of their Dublin game, have been very impressive,” said McGeeney. “Like us a couple of years ago, they’ve just been nicked by a point or two in games and they’ve been really strong.

“We have it all to do still but we’re intent on staying up in the first division and giving the Armagh fans something to cheer about hopefully so it’ll be all hands to the pump.”

Armagh head into the match off the back of a ten-point trouncing to Kerry last weekend and could be without a number of key men, although Ciaran Mackin and Joe McElroy did get their first minutes of 2025 last weekend in Tralee.

“We lost Tomás (McCormack) along with Niall (Grimley) and Ross McQuillan and we’ve had a few back with Ben (Crealey) getting back in on Saturday night again, although he hurt himself, I’m not sure if it was a dead leg or his hamstring again,” McGeeney added.

“We lost Jason (Duffy) in the warm-up with his hamstring, I don’t think it went but he was starting to feel it tight so we just didn’t want to take the chance. Those were a couple of the big changes from the last day (against Dublin).

“We had Ethan (Rafferty), Tomas, Jason and Ross (out from the Dublin game) so we were missing a lot of pace there throughout the middle. It’s unfortunate but these are the things you have to deal with.

“You seem to get two or three back in and then lose two or three on the other side but we’re just pushing to try and stay up in the division and keep going and hopefully get all our boys back for the championship.”