O’Rourke hungry for seconds

“It is not the critic who counts,” it read, “not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, if he wins, knows the thrills of high achievement, and, if he fails, at least fails daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Three years later, with his All-Ireland medal tucked in his pocket, McGeeney could still remember the sentiment behind the words. They triggered something within him.

O’Rourke grins and shifts in his seat, wondering how stories like that become public. When people clapped Armagh on the back last September the moments the players cherished most stopped being private property. The big speeches, Ali’s letter — the tales were no longer theirs to hold. At the same time, they took particular notice of what the public weren’t saying about them.

“There was a general feeling that the praise we got was grudging, in that it was a case of ‘They’re great at this, that or the other.’ Great passion, great fitness but no way a great team. No way lethal forwards. It was as though we’d bludgeoned our way to an All-Ireland, which I think was unfair.

“As this year has gone on, as soon as we started losing a couple of games, people started saying ‘The fitness couldn’t hold out that long and they don’t have the skill to keep it going.’ It wasn’t a case of being directly called bad All-Ireland champions, but we want to prove it to ourselves more than anyone else that we can play football. We’re not a rugby league team.”

All winter O’Rourke kept his training ticking over. Some friends asked him to take a few juvenile coaching sessions in their clubs and he obliged. It felt the best way to celebrate the victory, something in tune with what winning All-Irelands is all about. He had his All Star and a summer of near flawless performances to feed his confidence, but also had his own history to keep him on edge.

Life with Armagh began with a few laughs, travelling to Clones from college in Belfast around Christmas 1996 with Enda McNulty and Barry Duffy for their first ever games with the county, three freshly shaven heads in a car. They all did well and O’Rourke and Duffy struck a couple of goals.

Growing up in Dromintee, a parish that reaches both sides of the border, the O’Rourkes had obvious talent. Martin has joined Aidan on the panel this year, and Cathal hung on long enough for his All-Ireland medal last year. Back in the 1990s Cathal was established as a tricky forward and he wondered how strange it would be to have Aidan there too, how quickly he would settle. He found out. They marked each other in a few practice games, sparks flew, and the management decided to keep the O’Rourkes on the same side from then on.

Things were tough from the start. As a minor, O’Rourke had played full-back, but now he was getting passed over. Brian Canavan and Brian McAlinden had come in, and they reckoned him too small. He sat on the bench and got annoyed.

“I was a difficult sub. Not destructive, but I was always one of those thinking I’m as good as this fella or that, if I get a chance I can be as good as whoever. Plus, I was always asking questions, and the last management didn’t always like you asking questions.”

So his career remained patchy. He was dropped throughout 1998, brought in at the height of the summer in 1999 and he finally got a run in the 2000 championship in the last six minutes of the All-Ireland semi-final replay against Kerry.

As 2001 came around, he was getting fidgety. He held his spot at full-back through the League as Armagh desperately sought to fill the position, but after four years of politeness between players and management, things finally came to a head. One player and an official came close to blows at a challenge game in Kerry a few weeks before the championship. The team was in turmoil. O’Rourke was dropped and they lost to Tyrone in Ulster, and as the public muttered darkly about team selection, O’Rourke finally got his chance at wing-back.

“I was under the impression from the management that they were playing me right-half-back because people were calling out for changes. That would never be said to you but that’s the impression you’d have got. It’s difficult to play football in those conditions. You’re afraid to try things, you’re afraid to do anything that’s not absolutely rigid and standard.

“It was a difficult situation. This team has always been player driven. When you have quality there and those type of leaders you’ll get so far. I think we were just missing that last tenth. Sometimes we lost games by just not performing.”

Armagh played Galway in the third round of the qualifiers in Croke Park and lost, but it was the events surrounding the game that nearly finished off a chunk of the current generation. They assembled at Na Fianna’s grounds near Croke Park and had a warm-up, but when they returned to the bus the garda escort had disappeared. They trundled through the traffic, got there two minutes before the appointed throw-in time, but managed to negotiate an extra 15 minutes. They had togged off on the bus, tied their bootlaces in the dressing-room and had two minutes to kick about on the field before the game began. O’Rourke remembers making just one error during the match, and watched the substitution board go up with his number on it before he had made it back to his position.

“I remember that day against Galway exchanging jerseys with Joe Bergin after the game and Joe shook hands and said ‘Unlucky, ye’ll be back next year.’ And I said ‘We won’t. We’re finished. Just finished.’ I believed that at the time.”

The Crossmaglen boys said it was time for Kernan, and the rest backed them. He came in and things changed. Garda escorts were suddenly on time and it became easier to talk to the management. Nothing was left to chance. O’Rourke got a few runs. A winter’s training with Jordanstown gave him a jump on the rest, and for the year they couldn’t move him from wing-back. By Christmas, he had an All Star.

“I’d say a lot of guys didn’t enjoy last year as much. I’m thinking of a few guys now, and it has become a job these last couple of years. Last year, and the year before, it became a burden that we have to win this f****** thing. It became more of a job as opposed to pleasure.”

The demands on the team are different now, but the intensity still crackles like before. Armagh headed for Mauritius on their team holiday this winter with two light sessions scheduled to bookend the trip. As the days passed, though, Kernan would find more players in the gyms than on the beach, or organising little bouts of training among themselves. In the end, they trained every day. They didn’t think anything of it, it’s just the way they are.

O’Rourke didn’t have the springboard of the Sigerson Cup this year, but the pressure of starting a business selling framed sports photographs instead. The confidence gained last year has done him good though, and his form has barely dipped. Armagh got tripped up by Monaghan in Ulster but they never questioned their hunger. It was their own bad football that beat them. They ticked over through the qualifiers and waited for the first big test. Dublin stretched them in the first half and looked set to knock them out before Armagh came back off the ropes.

“The first half was a case of looking at each other and asking ourselves ‘Are we good enough? Have we lost it?’ And we just realised from somewhere inside that we were good enough to beat this team. The Dublin game was probably a catalyst in terms of moving us on those couple of steps we needed to go.”

They’re still fighting with a few rounds to go. Nothing is impossible once more.