All-Ireland Senior Ladies’ Football Championship
Mackin keeping the faith
Armagh turn their attention to All-Ireland
By DAIRE WALSH
ARMAGH’S Blaithin Mackin is hopeful a disappointing Ulster final defeat to Donegal on Sunday can serve as a blessing disguise for the Orchard County in the long run.
Having recorded eight straight victories on their way to securing a Lidl National Football League Division Two title in the spring, Armagh also got the better of Donegal and Cavan in the round robin phase of the provincial championship.
Yet despite holding a slender lead at an advanced stage of the second half at Owenbeg last weekend, a late flourish from the O’Donnell county saw them getting their hands on the Ulster SFC crown.
With the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship kick-starting on Saturday, June 17, Mackin believes Armagh are capable of absorbing lessons from their sole reversal of 2023 to date.
“It was disappointing, it wasn’t the plan going out,” Mackin said at yesterday’s Croke Park launch of the All-Ireland ladies’ football Championship.
“It’s hard to say now, it being so fresh, what exactly happened. Where probably we went wrong, but we’ll learn from it hopefully.
“Maybe it was what we needed coming into the All-Ireland championship. To sort of give us that kick to push on and step up our game a wee bit.
“We probably just didn’t perform on the day and Donegal did. That’s all it came down to, I think.
“We’ve been in similar situations before [losing games] and picked ourselves up from it. This is obviously a relatively young group and a new group, so hopefully we’ll be able to do the same.
“Probably this group hasn’t had that this year because we have won, but it just shows you that coming into the bigger games there’s no room for error and there’s no room to make as many mistakes.”
As a consequence of finishing runners-up in Ulster, the Armagh women have been pitted in Group A of the All-Ireland senior championship alongside Connacht winners Mayo and 2022 All-Ireland intermediate champions Laois.
Although it is a while since they faced Mayo in a competitive fixture, Armagh and Laois have clashed twice already this year.
Following on from a 0-10 to 0-5 group stage win over the O’Moore county at the Athletic Grounds on February 26, a hat-trick of goals from Mackin’s sister Aimee – who will join Blaithin at Aussie Rules outfit Melbourne Demons later this year – helped the Orchard to secure a 4-9 to 2-10 victory against Laois in a Division Two showpiece at Croke Park on April 15.
While on paper Armagh appear to find themselves in a tricky group, this was going to be the case regardless of how the result fell in the Ulster final.
In spite of dethroning Shane McCormack’s charges and – by extension – becoming the top seeds in Group B, Donegal will find themselves in direct competition with reigning All-Ireland champions Meath and a Waterford side that defeated them by eight points in an NFL Division One game at Letterkenny in February.
“Any group probably would have been hard,” Mackin added.
“The Championship is so open, anybody would be fit to win it. Obviously we’ve played Laois twice now this year.
“This will be the third time but, in both the games prior, it was not easy and we know how good Laois are. Sometimes familiarity can be a good and bad thing.
“We’ll just have to prepare well for that and the same with Mayo. They obviously won their championship, so they’re flying at the minute.
“It’s just about how we can prepare best and put our best foot forward in that group.”