Just how badly do you want to win?

THERE have been murmurs that Sunday represents the Orchard’s last chance saloon. Another failure might split up the team. McGeeney, who will turn 31 in October, dismisses the notion. “Suppose people would want you to believe that, but apart from a few relics like myself, the team is pretty young. Take out myself and Benny, the average age drops considerably. You have to look at each game as if it is your last. Your only opportunity. Because you don’t know what’s round the corner for anybody.

“A lot of our players are married and have young kids, commitment needed for players these days is unbelievable. I have no commitments outside of the football world, so I am fortunate in that respect. I don’t know how anyone else can afford to do it. It’s unfair to ask them to do it. People like Barry O’Hagan, Ger and Benny, they have young families. I don’t know how they do it.”

It has been an endless year for McGeeney. He finished up with Na Fianna a few days before Christmas and was back in the Armagh camp in the first week of the new year. Endless year. Despite the 150 odd miles he travels each evening from Dublin for training, he still enjoys it. No matter how hard the grind.

“Anything that you are going to enjoy in life does come out of hard work. Things that come easy in life you don’t get as much enjoyment out of. I wouldn’t still be playing if I didn’t get the buzz anymore. If it was only a matter of going out, putting on a jersey and winning an All-Ireland, there wouldn’t be much point in doing it.

“You have to work hard for certain things. If you achieve certain goals and objectives you set yourself, after working hard for them, they do mean more to you. This is my 13th year and I still have goals I want to achieve, levels I want to reach. Whether I do or not on Sunday is in the lap of the Gods.”

It is past nine, and with the short evenings, it’s getting fairly dark. Still, outside the clubhouse, there is bedlam. It will be a long time before the Athletic grounds clears tonight. They have waited twenty five years for Sunday. The hope that some day they would see it, sustained them through meaningless February league games.

Getting onto the stage isn’t enough for Kieran McGeeney. He is tired of waiting for success. Sunday’s about making success happen.