A week before Christmas, John Kavanagh presented Kieran McGeeney with a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
According to Kavanagh, the MMA coach, it came after almost ten years of dedicated weekly training by McGeeney and spoke to his immense and intense character.
“Black belt next” Kavanagh chimed in a social media post, five years after tying a purple belt around the 2002 All-Ireland winning Armagh captain’s waist and smiling for the cameras.
McGeeney in his fifth year as Armagh manager and must feel deeply frustrated that the same pay-off for his extreme commitment has not been as visible.
You could make a case that in year five of the McGeeney project, little has actually changed for the county.
The year before he took over, in