Rory Grugan urges Armagh to push for more despite All-Ireland Championship quarter-final berth already secured

The Irish Sun

2 days ago

RORY GRUGAN reckons it is 'a bit bizarre' that Armagh are already into the All-Ireland last eight after just two group games.
And the veteran captain conceded that
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Armagh ace Rory Grugan urged his team-mates to kick on in the All-Ireland Championship
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Armagh beat Dublin on Sunday in the All-Ireland Senior Championship Group 4 clash
Grugan was man of the match in
But the 34-year-old insists his side cannot relax against
He said 'pride' would prevent them taking a backstep and pointed to the fact that they need to push for improvement.
Grugan said: 'It's a bit bizarre. We are there with a game to go. It just means we have two weeks to get ready for Galway and see where that takes us.
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'You know you are going to be back in Croke Park in four weeks for a quarter-final, which is where you want to be.
'But we need to improve. Did we hit our targets against Dublin? Not many of them.
'There's things you'd be pleased with, like fighting for break ball and winning scraps and stuff like that.
'But so much of what we did we wouldn't be happy with in terms of both our own possessions and the amount of chances we gave up. There were a lot of chances they missed.
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'Dublin could easily have been gone from us in the first half. There's so much we can improve on. That's not the worst way to be going into the next game.'
Error-prone Dublin blasted 17 wides in Sunday's five-point loss to the Orchard.
Tipperary GAA star 'had to do live apology on RTE' the day after cursing during All-Ireland interview -
They also hit the post twice and dropped several attempts short. And Dessie Farrell's men gifted five points to Armagh from technical fouls.
Throw in Armagh's own shortcomings and Grugan is glad just to have won without hitting enough of their 'key performance indicators'.
He said: 'It was our highest turnover count all season. It's strange in a way to win a game knowing you didn't hit a lot of your KPIs, yet you are still coming out of Croke Park after beating Dublin.
'It's a good thing. It's a bit of a weird feeling but it's obviously a good one.'
Grugan said that far from being a dead rubber for Armagh, the Galway game is a chance to chase those improvements.
And he pointed to the value of momentum ahead of the quarter-finals.
The Ballymacnab man said: 'I don't think at this level that taking a step back or having some sort of mindset of not being bothered about winning a game is a good thing. Momentum is a big thing.
'You have two weeks to Galway and two weeks then to an All-Ireland quarter-final. So we are going to be really going after the Galway game.'
Grugan's strong form is a big boost to Armagh ahead of the business end of the campaign.
On their All-Ireland win, he said: 'I was 33 at the time. There might be a perception on the outside that you'd walk away. It was honestly the opposite for me — you just wanted to go again."