Armagh will bounce back from defeating Roscommon and insist on “Sambo” McNaughton

Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton manages to get enough teams to survive heavy defeats.

Sure, he didn’t want his first tournament as Armage’s interim manager to end in a 21-point defeat to Roscommon, but that’s how Nick Ruckard opened the cup on Sunday at Athletic.

The hosts were absolutely superior across the board and the profit margin was by no means happy for the Russians who lost three more chances to score and collect 21 flyers.

Armagh Tiarnan Nevin and Shawn Toll (second yellow) also shot in the second half.

“Anything that could go wrong has gone wrong,” McNaughton replied when asked to rate the loss 2-7 from 5-19.

“And it was one of those days. They were smarter and fitter to be honest. They have a good offensive line and when you lose some guys, they follow the shadows.”

Hurling is like that. “The ball is caught and the game goes away from you and follows you.”

With 10 minutes to go, Roscommon snatched his first five goals when Brendan Mule netted an open net after Armagh goalkeeper Simon Doherty made a fine save and sent Connell Kennedy away from close range.

Playing in a strong breeze, Konaktar extended his lead from 3-12 to 0-4 in the first half as Mickey Joe Egan scored twice in the first half.

Perhaps McKinton’s words caught his eye during the break, Armagh started the second half perfectly with Ewen McGuinness, who scored the lead with a fine-scoring goal.

However, it was a false dawn for Armagh as they struggled to break through Roscommon’s defenses. Jason Martin played Sway perfectly.

Things went from bad to worse for referee Richard Connors when referee James Connors gave defender Nevin a straight red card on his team’s advice after the ball crashed.

With Daniel Glenn doing his best, Roscommon continued to clean up with Ayn Kiernan and Kennell also found the net in the second half.

Armagh finally made use of his last attack when She-Harvey hit Sloot in the bottom corner after a rare fall from Roscommon’s rear. However, he only worked to reduce the deficit to 21 points on the full-time whistle.

The former Antrim chief called Sunday’s failure one of the hardest he’s ever experienced, but stressed it shouldn’t be considered too much as Orchard County must be pieced together for this weekend’s trip to Donegal.

“It wasn’t very good – it could have been there,” added one Koshendal resident.

“You don’t want to lose, but I was on the verge of failure.

“To be fair with Roscommon, they were much more severe. The last day we took breaks, today they took breaks.

“Don’t panic: you can’t do anything. You just have to keep doing it, get up and move on.

“You are kind of a protection for the players. You can’t train and try to keep them up to date with the matches because they come from week to week and the boys get injured.

“It’s going to be tough (Donegal) because we have more injuries and we’re out now, so we’ll have to dig deep,” he added.

McNaughton added that Middletown’s Nathan Curry will miss Sunday’s match with Roscommon Laerken with an ankle injury.