{"id":254915,"date":"2025-12-28T01:33:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T01:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/254915\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T01:33:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T01:33:14","slug":"armagh-star-reveals-reason-for-shock-exit-from-panel-ahead-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/254915\/","title":{"rendered":"Armagh Star Reveals Reason For Shock Exit From Panel Ahead Of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Armagh will enter the 2026 inter-county seasons as one of the favourites to lift the Sam Maguire, but their chances of winning another All-Ireland could be dented by a shock departure from the panel.<\/p>\n<p>Madden&#8217;s Niall Grimley has established himself as a key player for Armagh in recent years, playing a big role in the county&#8217;s 2024 All-Ireland triumph. He has also starred at club level in recent times, helping Madden to a first ever senior county title earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>However, Grimley has now revealed that he has stepped away from Kieran McGeeney&#8217;s panel ahead of the new season.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/gaelic-football-quiz-of-the-year-2025-646709\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Can You Get 20\/20 In Our Gaelic Football Quiz Of The Year?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n        Recommended\n    <\/p>\n<p>                        <a :href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/article.url\" :title=\"article.title\" :aria-label=\"article.title\" class=\"not-prose col-span-2 md:col-span-1 ga-event\" data-category=\"Recommended Article Tracker\" data-action=\"click\" :data-label=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/article.url\" :data-value=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/article.url\"><\/p>\n<p>                                            <img class=\"aspect-video\" width=\"130\" height=\"73\" :src=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/article.image\" :alt=\"'Image for: ' + article.title\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        <\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/dual-club-all-ireland-con-jbm-620484\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The 13 GAA Players Who Have Won Club All-Irelands In Football And Hurling<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Armagh Star Reveals Reason For Shock Exit From Panel<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Niall Grimley <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/gb\/podcast\/two-brothers-one-day-two-championships\/id1517446295?i=1000742768538\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">appeared<\/a> on an Armagh GAA podcast this week alongside his brother Ryan, where he dropped the bombshell that he would not be part of the inter-county panel heading into 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Grimley revealed that mounting family commitments were his reason for making this decision. He also suggested that his future in orange is very much up in the air as things stand.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I met the boss man (Kieran McGeeney) a couple of months ago and made the very tough decision to step away.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not a decision that I have took lightly; a lot of thought has went into it.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, I have two kids at the minute, Olivia is three and Kaden\u2019s only coming three months, so it\u2019s just very busy&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m just taking time to step away, it could be for three months, [I] come back next October and give it another rattle, I could never go back.<\/p>\n<p>I know the lads [have been] unbelievable, they\u2019re only going one direction.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a decision I\u2019ve had to make for myself. I\u2019ve been on the road 10 years, [and] the past couple of years hasn\u2019t been easy with injury.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Grimley&#8217;s absence will certainly be a big blow for Armagh heading into next season, with Kieran McGeeney&#8217;s side set to open their season with a Dr McKenna Cup clash against Tyrone on January 2nd.<\/p>\n<p>They will no doubt hope that the Madden man may reconsider his decision later on in the year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SEE ALSO:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/gaa\/gaa-player-owned-pubs-ireland-list-646605\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">9 Famous Irish Pubs That Are Owned And Operated By GAA Players<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Armagh will enter the 2026 inter-county seasons as one of the favourites to lift the Sam Maguire, but&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[10613,18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-254915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-armagh","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115794621462682978","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}