Kieran McGeeney is without several key players in the early part of the League, but the Orchard County scored an impressive opening round win over Monaghan – scoring 1-17 in Clones
It was one of the most eye-catching performances of the opening round of the National Football League. A tally of 1-27, 1-25 of which came from play, and a 12-point hammering of Monaghan was as good a start as Kieran McGeeney could have hoped for.
Midfielder Callum O’Neill knows the Armagh boss won’t be satisfied with certain elements of their play, however and will demand further improvement when Galway visit the Box-It Athletic Grounds on Saturday evening.
“We’ve had a lot of good battles with them over the years from 2021 up to the All-Ireland final and every time they come to the Athletic Grounds it’s a good battle especially at a full house,” said O’Neill.
“It’s early doors in January so it’s hard to know where everybody is at but we’ll focus on ourselves at what we can get better at and hopefully we’ll have an improved performance at the weekend.
“You saw Kerry against us last year, they got 32 points. It’s a scoring game and you need to be racking up the scores. You can try and keep people out as best you can but you need to be putting the ball over the bar.
“Any day you go out you’re aiming to get up to that sort of tally and hopefully we can stay as efficient as the year goes on.”
The Belleek clubman contributed two points as one of 11 different scorers for the Orchard County in Clones last Sunday.
In recent seasons, Armagh have struggled to land on a settled midfield pairing.
The All-Ireland winning partnership of Niall Grimley and Ben Crealey aren’t available with the former stepping away from the panel while Crealey is a doubt with a neck injury.
Rian O’Neill won’t be part of Armagh’s plans for 2026 while Aidan Forker, Aaron McKay, Ciaran Mackin, Darragh McMullan, Tomas Galvin and Barry McCambridge are injured while Rory Grugan is set to return from France this week.
A further five players retired from Armagh duty over the winter, including Stefan ‘Soupy’ Campbell and Jemar Hall while Shane McPartland, Ciaran Mackin and Ciaran Higgins opted off the squad.
O’Neill had forced his way into the starting team last season and played in the Ulster final loss to Donegal, but was edged out in the latter stages of the campaign with the aforementioned duo of Grimley and Crealey starting the All-Ireland SFC quarter-final defeat to Kerry.
O’Neill stressed that Armagh have the strength-in-depth to cope with so many missing bodies and hopes he can establish himself as a regular starter for McGeeney this season.
“I got a good pre-season, I aim to work hard over the pre-season and I want us to step forward and really push on this year,” said O’Neill.
“I’m happy enough to get the start and get in for the first game.”
“Everyone made a big issue of the retirements that we had. Obviously, the quality – the likes of Soupy and that – stepping away.
“You can see the quality that’s coming in, Fergal O’Brien and Gareth Murphy stepped in for league debuts and Dan McCarthy coming off the bench… there’s plenty more behind that and the young lads have added a real freshness so there’s a good squad building again.”