SINCE they teamed up Kieran Donaghy and Kieran McGeeney have had a running joke. “When I went up first,” says Donaghy, “I told McGeeney, ‘I’m lucky. I’ll bring you luck!” McGeeney hadn’t been a general of that kind.
A Kildare team he brought from nowhere to national relevance lost a string of big games in heartbreaking fashion. Fortune hadn’t really been favouring him in Armagh either. In 2019, his fifth full year at the helm, they were knocked out after losing by only a point on the road to Mayo.
As it turned out that was the beginning of him reacquainting with Donaghy, Armagh’s rise but also their run of agonisingly-close defeats. After this year’s Ulster final, McGeeney found himself looking at Donaghy. The man might have won four All Irelands as a player with Kerry but as a coach with Armagh the team had now lost four championship games on penalties.
“Where’s your f****n’ luck?!” Yet a few months later sitting on the benches of a Croke Park dressing room, McGeeney found Donaghy grinning at him. “Told you I was lucky!” McGeeney could only laugh. This year's All-Ireland football title was won by a lot more than luck.
But he had to concede, it probably did play a part, especially when it came to Donaghy. Because what if he hadn’t been staying in the same Westport hotel as the team the night of that loss to Mayo in 2019? What if either Armagh or the Sky Sports team had opted to remain in Castlebar where that game had been played? The pair o.