'Your own personality is entwined in victory or defeat'

Kieran McGeeney said the pain of Armagh's series of heartbreaking defeats in recent seasons helped them overcome Galway in Sunday's All-Ireland Football Final

"When your own personality is entwined in a victory or a defeat and the impact that can have on you."

Kieran McGeeney's words as he attempted to articulate what Armagh's All-Ireland Football Final triumph over Galway meant to him indicated full knowledge of the dangers of allowing yourself to be defined by the outcome in what is ultimately an amateur sport.

But his very next utterance suggested that for the true competitor, the losses really have to cut deep if you want to be a winner.

"Those moments, that we lost on penalties and those moments when we sat in there with our heads in our hands. Did that have an impact on our last five minutes? Definitely."

McGeeney was talking about the concluding frenetic moments of Sunday's All-Ireland decider which included magnificent midfielder Ben Crealey winning a vital turnover and Joe McElroy's block in the closing 45 seconds of play which prevented Paul Conroy kicking a Galway equaliser.

The Orchard men had led by three with less than three minutes of normal time only for Cein D'Arcy and and Cillian McDaid to reply to leave the minimum between the sides as the game went into six minutes of added time allotted by referee Sean Hurson largely because of an injury to Rory Grugan.

"Sometimes your strongest steel is forged in fire. There’s no doubt about that. It affects you in a way that it very hard to articulate to people," added McGeeney when asked about the part the previous Croke Park and Clones heartbreak had played in Sunday's success.

A reflective and expansive McGeeney was joined at his post-match news conference by centre half-back Tiernan Kelly and substitute Oisin O'Neill who both got on the scoresheet with vital second-half scores after campaigns which included periods when they had appeared peripheral players in the squad.

"TK didn’t play for most of the Ulster Championship. I remember sitting beside him during the semi-final was it and saying, ‘your time is going to come’. And it did, he’s been outstanding for us," added the Armagh boss.

"Oisin has been one of our best players over the past five and six years but I’d asked him to take a different role this year in coming off the bench.

"He’s one of the smartest players we have. He’s able to see things than other players aren’t but it’s not always available at the beginning of the game and for those fellows to bury their ego is not an easy thing."

O'Neill was wearing a tee shirt promoting the fund-raising campaign for his Crossmaglen team-mate Caolan Finnegan, who is suffering from brain cancer and, O'Neill revealed, is travelling to Germany on Monday for further treatment.

Stefan Campbell was another player whose campaign was latterly confined to a substitute's role but what an impact he made on the biggest GAA stage of all as his surging run set up what Aaron McKay's 47th-minute goal which ultimately proved the crucial score in Armagh's 1-11 to 0-13 triumph.

"There’s no doubt that Soupy is one of the best forwards in the country," continued McGeeney.

"Those players who can cut back at defences when the game opens up, they can be a wee bit more impactful rather than always sort of chasing around [early on].

"Before I took over 10 years ago and I told Soupy that any time Armagh win something there’s always somebody – and Clann Eireann [Tiernan Kelly] might kill me here – from Clan na Gael up front and centre of it and so it was again today."

McGeeney's use of the bench as Jarly Og Burns, Jason Duffy and Ross McQuillan were also introduced to positive effect was testament to what the Armagh boss described as a "changing game".

"Soupy has taken that in his stride this year. Like Oisin as well, they take immense pride in being the one who comes on to win the game.

"It’s not a derogatory thing. It’s seen as something to be proud of. Something that has a massive impact on the game. A lot of these big games are won in the last 10 or 5 minutes."

McGeeney is now hoping that Campbell and other experienced members of the victorious Armagh squad such as skipper Aidan Forker and Rory Grugan will continue to soldier in the Orchard squad.

"You’re trying to keep those older players and I’m hoping this particular win will make those fellows stay on for another year or two.

"There’s another four or five teams that would easily feel that it they played Armagh tomorrow they would beat them. So it’s up to these fellows to see if they want to improve and go on and try and win another one."

While McGeeney was more than happy to shoot the breeze after his team's triumph, Galway boss Padraic Joyce had to undertake the horrible task of explaining a second All-Ireland Final defeat in three seasons.

"We’re absolutely devastated. The dressing-room is an awful state in there," said the Tribesmen manager before he quickly offered his "congratulations to Armagh and Kieran".

"They won the game but we have to be realistic, in the second half we didn’t play anywhere near to our potential and we probably made more mistakes in that second half than we’ve made all the games all year."

Joyce lamented a conversion rate of 13 scores from 25 shots at goal although he refused to go down the road of blaming their recent injuries for the seriously below-par display of key forwards Shane Walsh and Damien Comer

Describing his players efforts over his five seasons in charge as fantastic, Joyce said "it's just hard to put your finger on why we didn’t perform how we should have".

"Enough of our players didn’t hit form today and loss of Rob [Finnerty] early on was a big loss to us.

"It’s going to haunt us for a while. Probably as long as we can’t win it.

"We had a great chance after a super year. We knew coming in someone was going to be disappointed, someone was going to be elated and we’re going to regret it for a long time."