This weekend two great rivals go toe-to-toe in the National Football League.
With a history of bad blood and ferocious battles, this is one the supporters circle every year in the calendar. No true fan of either county would miss this fixture.
In recent times the visitors have held the whip hand but they must travel into the bearpit and try to quell a home team who are buoyed by recent results.
Forget Kerry-Dublin, Division 3 is where it is at this weekend as Armagh travel to Drogheda to take on high-flying Louth.
Table via GAA.ie
Wexford in Division 4 and Louth alone have 100% records in this year’s league but, as Stevie McDonnell explained on The GAA Hour, Armagh don’t need the motivation of ending the Wee County’s run to get up for this game.
Kieran McGeeney’s men will be motivated by pure, unadulterated desire to stick it to their neighbours – as they are every time they meet.
McDonnell described an infamous match from 2007 when tensions boiled over between the two counties before the ball was throw in, as Louth, managed by Eamon McEneaney, did the unspeakable and warmed up into the Town End at Crossmaglen ahead of their Division 1B clash.
Listen from 41 minutes, or continue reading below, for McDonnell’s recollection of a tussle that sounded far more aggressive than Mayo’s infamous taking of the Hill a year earlier.
“Joe Kernan was giving his teamtalk, and the dressingrooms in Crossmaglen, there are these big windows so you can see right out into the pitch. He was giving the teamtalk and we could see he was distracted giving the teamtalk, and when we looked out on the pitch we could see Louth were kicking at our end,” says McDonnell.
“We weren’t putting up with this at all. The Town End was our warm-up end. I swear to God, I remember we went out and there were balls being blasted into the faces of opponents,” adds McDonnell, as he recounts Armagh’s attempts to retake their end.
“We went out into our end and that’s it. Louth were arrogant and cocky enough that they thought they were going to come to Crossmaglen and do their warm-up in Armagh’s end, but it wasn’t going to be the case.”
The ‘Mill at the Hill’ had nothing on this encounter, by all accounts.
“There were more than 30 players, both squads, lacing balls into the face or any body part that we could. It ended up the referee had to intervene and Louth went up their end and we won the game,” he added.
“There were certainly blows. It was hell to leather.”
McDonnell, being modest, doesn’t mention it was his last-gasp goal that secured Armagh a 1-9 to 0-11 win over their hated rivals in a match that saw Malachy Mackin and Colin Goss red carded.
These two just plain don’t like each other.
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