Competition for places around the engine room is driving Armagh’s fine early-season says midfielder Stephen Sheridan.
The Orchard County needed to see off Roscommon in a relegation play-off to retain their Division One status last season, but are top of the pile following the first two weekends of action.
They caused a massive upset when defeating Dublin by five points in Croke Park in their opener and they proved it was no fluke with a well-deserved 2-14 to 0-14 win over All-Ireland champions Tyrone in the Athletic Grounds last Sunday.
That victory was slightly overshadowed by the five red cards issued to Tyrone quartet Padraig Hampsey, Michael McKernan, Peter Harte and Kieran McGeary as well as Armagh’s Greg McCabe following an unsavoury melee in injury-time.
Yet, the result was already a foregone conclusion at that stage as Armagh’s power and pace proved too much for the Red Hands.
The margin of victory might have been greater were it not for a couple of superb saves from Niall Morgan in the first half - including one to deny Sheridan from point-blank range.
Sheridan feels the strength-in-depth in the current squad is one of the main reasons why they’ve started the season so well.
“If you look back at the McKenna Cup, we were struggling for midfielders and put Ciaran Mackin in there, and he’s probably been our best player in every game since then,” said Sheridan.
“The competition is ferocious at the minute. We’ve key men coming back in around the middle.
“We’ve Oisin (O’Neill) coming back in, Ben Crealey got good news that his hamstring isn’t too bad so he’ll be battling for his spot that I was lucky enough to step into.
“The competition is really good. If you want to take your foot off in training, somebody will come in and take your spot.
“That’s what we’re trying to build, that if you’re not up to the task, it’s the next man in to do the job.
“We emptied the bench there, we emptied it last week and we’re trying to build a good team culture.
“The strength-in-depth is something we’ve really pushed over the last 12 to 18 months, and we’re in a good place on that now.
“We’re still in the early stages of the year and there’s a lot to go yet. We’re happy with four points on the board.”
Manager Kieran McGeeney was at pains to point out that Armagh’s strong start to the campaign will count for little if they don’t perform on a consistent basis as the season progresses.
Still, the Orchard County are the only team in the top flight with a 100 per cent record having started the year as one of the favourites to be relegated.
They’ll probably need at least one more point from their remaining five fixtures with Monaghan visiting the Athletic Grounds on Saturday, February 19 and Sheridan says Armagh won’t settle until they’ve confirmed their place in Division One for 2023.
“We set out a long time ago to get back playing at the top table,” said Sheridan.
“It didn’t happen overnight. There were a lot of highs, a lot of lows, and we worked hard to get there.
“That was our big aim this year, to consolidate our spot in Division One. We went to a relegation playoff last year with Roscommon and thankfully came through that to keep ourselves here.
“Consolidating ourselves in Division One is a big thing for us. That’s our target and we want to be sitting in Division One at the end of it.
“Four points is good but there’s been teams relegated on four points, we can’t get complacent.”
Sheridan also refutes the notion that Armagh have have peaked too soon with their impressive victories over Dublin and Tyrone.
“That’s going about because we probably have shown well in our last two games, but every county team’s put the same work in that we’re putting in,” added the Forkhill clubman.
“Whether they publicise it or not, everybody’s doing the same work. The conditioning of players, at the end of the day it’s winter football, you’re going around through soggy fields, everything’s different and you need to have the conditioning.
“Thankfully Julie Davis (Armagh trainer) has us well prepared for that.
“I wouldn’t be too concerned about peaking now. I think there’s a lot more to come in us.”
