Oisin McConville says Armagh have “hit the nuclear button” by calling a halt to all of its club activity.

This past Friday saw the Armagh board suspend all club related activity in the county for an indefinite period following a number of confirmed Covid-19 cases among the Orchard County's senior football panel

A record 934 new cases were recorded in Northern Ireland last Friday, while a number of Armagh clubs have been "adversely impacted".

McConville agreed that precautions need to be taken but is against the call to bring a halt to all games across the board, suggesting that the county board should’ve taken an approach to implement a more localised shutdown. 

"The first I heard of it was that all the inter-county players were getting tested," the 2002 All-Ireland winner told RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport.

"I felt as if, having heard what [GAA head of games] Feargal McGill said during the week about the fact they were going to ramp up testing, I thought it was maybe just a precautionary thing or it was routine.

"Then I heard of an outbreak in a club locally and we hit the nuclear button by calling a halt to all proceedings.

"Nobody has given any evidence of this outbreak happening outdoors when players are either going to games togged out, meeting outdoors, nothing happening n a changing room situation - no body has given that information. We're so far into this pandemic you'd think at this stage we would have a little bit more information on that.”

He continued: "The thing with the gatherings means that maybe after a championship win or different things like that, teams are obviously getting together in conditions that aren't suitable, but to punish everybody as a result of that, it seems a little bit harsh on the underage fixtures.

"I agree with all the sentiments about safety first, but we could be living with this pandemic for another couple of years. Every time we have an outbreak are we going to shut down everything? A more localised shutdown I would have thought would have made more sense.

"Obviously the inter-county team, if they have several cases in there, then shut that particular thing down, but to shut the whole thing down just seems to me to be a little bit off the wall."

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