Penalties or no penalties? Armagh boss Kieran McGeeney believes they are “fair” after his side lost 5-4 to Monaghan from spot kicks.
‘Geezer’ believes that taking the game to penalties is “fairer than a lot of ways” to decider a winner.
“The McKenna Cup was good for us and I feel we never got beaten in it. The boys did everything they had to do but penalties, I think it’s a fair way.”
“The best way? I don’t think there’s any other way that you can take it out of somebodies hands, it’s in your own.”
“You play extra time and you can have five decisions go against you. At least with penalties it’s in your hands. Nobody can give you a free or not give you a penalty or anything.”
“It’s fair, I think it’s fairer than a lot of ways. I just think ways of taking it out referee’s hands is a good way to finish a game.”
Pressure kicks
Rian O’Neill, Aidan Nugent, Rory Grugan, Stefan Campbell and Jemar Hall all put their names forward to take a shot from the spot.
McGeeney admitted that the players do practise penalties and that the modern player has a full range of skillset in his arsenal.
“I’m a big believer in if you put your paw up, you have to want to take those sort of things, you have to have a bit of a thick skin so it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.”
“A lot of the boys would (practise penalties) but practising penalties is like, can you walk across that beam? Can you walk across it when it’s 100 feet in the air? The pressures different.”
“A lot of them would be very good at penalties, modern day players are very, very skillful.”
“You’ve only a handful of players in your panel that wouldn’t fancy themselves for a penalty. We have people in management nearly were fancying themselves for a penalty!”
“It didn’t go our way but I thought we did enough in the game to do ourselves justice and it just didn’t bounce our way. “
