Red Hand-Orchard final?
Yesterday's winning quarter-finalists at Croke Park are now 9/4 to produce the first Ulster All-Ireland football final in history and neither is likely to falter at the altar of fancy talk and platitudes in print.
"We're a product in the making, not a finished product," insisted Tyrone boss Mickey Harte after his side butchered Fermanagh by 19 points.
"We have something that we don't want to let go of," warned Armagh's Joe Kernan. "Once there's a battle to be fought, these boys of ours are great."
Over 76,000 analysts left Croke Park divided on which was the favourite to lift Sam Maguire.
"I'd just about fancy Tyrone, but they would certainly be ranked No 1 and 2," reckoned Laois manager Mick O'Dwyer, after watching his side become the latest to be outlasted by the grim grit of the All-Ireland champions.
It was the Orchard's first Championship trip to Croke Park since the momentous events of last September, and they reaffirmed the resilience that saw off Kerry with a 0-15 to 0-13 defeat of the Leinster champions.
But again afterwards, Joe Kernan found himself defending his ploys and his players.
Booed back into the field for the second half after an inordinate dressing-room delay, Armagh ended the game with two players clearly killing time with "cramp." In between they went from the inspired to the infuriating, but Kernan was walking the straight line.
"There have been things said about us, but we're a hard, honest team that gets up and plays football. All I can do is send out my players as honest as I can and they're an honest bunch and a crowd of grafters.That's all."
Maybe that's it. Perhaps, the romantics and the neutrals hiss at Armagh because they don't win with a smile and a swagger. They don't run to the touchline with their jerseys swinging over their head. Instead they clench their fists, pack down, and grunt harder.
It would be peachy to say they arrive without a game plan and rely on natural instinct, but they're so meticulous, they'd drive Statto to drink.
That's why they were late returning for the second half. "It was nothing sinister or intentional," insisted Kernan.
"There was a lot of work to be done at half time taking on water, using the bathroom, tending injuries, and analysing the stats basic stuff but sometime it takes longer than normal," explained Kernan.
"There's more in us. The big games have come at the right time but you can always improve on what you do while the effort was good today, we still made enough mistakes, and we'll look at the video, and iron things out."
And you know they will. Repeatedly. If Armagh relinquish their All-Ireland title, Roy Keane can't look them in the eye and say: "Fail to prepare, prepare to fail." Complacency may concern Tyrone after their surreal 1-21 to 0-5 defeat of Croker debutants, Fermanagh, but it need not come knocking on Armagh's door today they'll be too busy monitoring their semi-final opponents, Galway or Donegal.
Or had we all forgotten that there's six teams still left on the September Road? Kerry meet Roscommon today (3.45pm) for the right to face Tyrone's firing squad; wing-back Philip Jordan was conspicuous as the only Tyrone player yesterday from No 5 to 15 not to get on the scoresheet and he was withdrawn before the finish!
Mickey Harte's band of Red Hands believe this is their year, but the queasy feeling remains that they have yet to face the searching test that is their rite of passage. Unless Tommy Carr has the shock of the weekend in his locker,
Tyrone won't have to wait long.
Three other ingredients strengthen Armagh's mix the first being yesterday's searching examination from Mick O'Dwyer's tyros. Level at the break after Laois keeper Fergal Byron twice denied the champions certain goals, Armagh couldn't shake the midlanders' pesky challenge.
"It was nerve-wracking," Kernan conceded. "I knew from the off that Laois would keep coming and coming. We made an awful lot of mistakes but we are where we want to be (in the semi-finals) and I'm only worried about one team my own."
In that side, he has two men reborn. Oisíin McConville is after a difficult winter with injuries, but his seven points yesterday augurs well. As does the roving defensive role of nominal corner-forward Tony McEntee.
"We won an All-Ireland last year without one of the best footballers in Ireland. I've always said that. You can play Tony at full-back, full-forward, midfield there's possibly only one other player I'd compare him to and that's Séamus Moynihan . That's how highly I rate Tony McEntee."
Down the corridor, Mick O'Dwyer was rolling up his programme and stuffing it into his kit bag for the final time this season.
"Will I be back next year? Bet your life. Try to keep me out of this place."
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