Armagh county football team

who are joined by Leashes, Clodagh Tynan.

And finally, for the Premier Junior Player of the Year, Ciara Hill and Eimear O'Kane from Champions Armagh are nominated alongside Cavan's Roisin O'Keefe.

Those winners will be announced at Croke Park on November 21st.

The All-Ireland Senior Champions, Cork, dominate the All-Star nominations with 14 players on the list.

Runners-up goal, we have 10 nominees.

Semi-finalists, Kilkenny have six, while Tipperary have four and Clare and Waterford have one nominee each.

We have some retirement news from Armagh.

Yep, Rory Grugan and James Morgan have announced their retirement from inter-county football.

PSNI investigation subsequently brought no charges, you know, but for you guys, Roy had to step away at that time.

It was three days out, I think, from an Ulster final against Armagh.

From us looking from the outside in, I remember being in Clonus that day and it was the single most intense environment I think I've ever experienced, even from the point of watching you coming in from the bus and Ciarán Mina, you know, who was...

Like an oasis of calm.

But the problem is with the fisted point is when you're, when the corner, when the entire car is excellent at it too, he'll cut you on the narrow side during the end lane.

What happens now when you can't hand pass it over the bar? Is that a good look for the game either? You're kicking it back out the way or whatever else? I think the festive point is a good thing in many ways because it serves a purpose.

I get the fact that teams now, like Armagh in particular, they're really going to town on it, but teams are studying how to win and that's going to be a by-product of it.

How much work would you have put in, Chrissie, sorry, because I always remember hearing the Sean Murray Lockhart stories about him, you know, in his little black book and the details that he would have had of potential opponents.

Mm.

11 Mayo, seven Kerry, five for Dublin, four for Westmeath, and then three for Louth, Armagh, and Monaghan, two for Roscommon, Cork, Galway, and Tyrone, and one from Donegal.

Eight players from Ulster only.

You would've got very high odds on something like that at the start of the year, I imagine, if, when you were looking at front runners in the likes of Armagh and in Donegal.

So not the, the year for Ulster football that you would've expected, Mugsy.

Um, few people unlucky to miss out on a nomination here, though?

Absolutely.

Uh, one other before we actually get into picking the team, one man maybe a bit unfortunate to be missing out in is Sam Mulroy, considering Louth got to semifinal.

I think we covered that.

Jamie saying Cross McGann, Clonair and semi-final in Armagh will be box office boat potential Ulster champions.

Emma Clark, will you do a road show in London? Emma, we'll come back to you on that in a little

while.

do you reckon I know he said it

Tiernan Kelly, Charlie O'Byrnes and Oisín Connolly all nominated from the Ulster Champions.

Armagh, as we mentioned, Murtagh and Heenehan from Roscommon.

No Turbot, okay.

well.

Are Limerick, by the way, are they seeing this as anti-them? You know what I mean? Certainly the Armagh footballers weren't massive fans of the rule changes that came in after they had won in All-Ireland.

I haven't heard any word now from on the ground in Limerick.

I think they're cute enough to keep their powder dry on it.

Yeah, Gerard Hegarty came out and said, listen, I'm all for trying things.

Absolutely, you know.

And, you know, to be fair to the Armagh footballers, you know, they've won two Irons in their history.

It might have felt more pointed.

also

What a year it has been for the Masters, coming back, forming back about three years ago, certainly two years ago, but this year seeing them reaching an Ulster final at the grounds here in Luton, losing out on penalties to Armagh, and they also then went through the, I suppose, the All-Ireland Series unbeaten until, towards the end, lost to Donegal, dropped into a Shield competition, unfortunately lost out then in the All-Ireland semi-final to Roscommon, bringing an end to the year for them.

And we just said we'd meet up with a few of the lads here.

I'm delighted to be in the company of Noel Smith from Cleveland, Hughie McElroy of Lattin.

Lots of success.

He won four Connacht senior titles and he brought Galway to two finals, narrowly beaten by Kerry in 22 and Armagh in 24.

We're joined now by our Gala Games correspondent, Marty Marcy.

Marty, despite that success, there had been talk of this for quite a while now, hadn't there?

And people forget in 2022 days, that was Galway's first All-Ireland final appearance in 21 years.

And Paul Rick Joyce guided them to that All-Ireland final.

But I do think that losing to Armagh is the one that has really... is the heartbreaking one, is the disappointing one.

So I would imagine that he's decided after seven years in the dressing room that a new voice is now needed to look forward to 2027 and 2028 and the years ahead.

Yeah, I don't think there's anything conspiratorial about that.

I think there's probably a big explanation that is based in fact, and as you say there, the form wasn't great ever since Kerry kind of arrived to Croke Park, ever since the Armagh game really.

And a large part of that is probably down to the amount of football that was being played and also the injuries and the unavailability of a lot of players for a lot of the season when it came to what Jack O'Connor had at his disposal.

Yeah.

You're always going to say Kerry.

And I think a lot of the, the buildup and the kind of anticipation, again, you're kind of thinking you'd be tipping Kerry and kind of going everything was with it.

If, if they can kick on to the next year and get that bit fitter, but I suppose there's only two weeks between games so it wasn't the whole pile the boys were doing to get fitter and get sharper there wasn't much there and they were just about getting by and like we mentioned the Armagh game I think 30 points they scored in that day and 31 against Tyrone in the quarter final only 24 against Dublin and the lowest score of the year then against Mayo at 20 in total yeah like there's just a lack of energy with the team this year I do think it's down to something as simple as they didn't have players on the field for long enough to I think too many big players missed too many big chunks of football and they got them back on the field, but they were never going to get them up to speed.

Just the fact is that they can't train.