This isn’t Year One for Cork. For them, it’s simply time

Leaders have emerged for the Rebels this championship season, writes Kieran Shannon

On the eve of the seismic all-Ulster All Ireland football final of 2003, Mickey Harte found himself looking for a pen on the team bus down to Dublin after coming across the respective team pics in one of the morning newspapers.

A common narrative in the lead up to the game was Armagh’s physical supremacy. If they weren’t bullying or blowing aside opponents, they were at the very least wearing them down. Ultimately all those hits told and took a toll. The last 15 minutes of a game was invariably orange. Armagh were simply too strong and too big for everyone else.