Clockwork Orange

JOE KERNAN stands with his back against the wall of a corridor in Croke Park and smiles when somebody observes that it was fairly comfortable for Armagh in the end.

The comfort zone doesn't exist in Kernan's world, it is the enemy that he has to guard his team against.

"Comfortable?" he says. "It is never comfortable until the final whistle. It was never comfortable."

Sometimes, listening to Kernan, it's like he is never happy until he finds a flaw or two in his team. It will be difficult to find any in yesterday's Allianz football league final victory over Wexford (1-21 to 1-14).

"It is difficult on the sideline to judge how a game is going, I will look at the video this week and I am sure I will find a few faults."

He's not joking: this Armagh team have hit a few bumps on the road whenever they have looked comfortable in the past.

"There were some good passages of play, we took some great scores. The boys will be in the history books now as the first Armagh players to win a national league, so we are going to enjoy this and start concentrating on the championship next week."

Armagh will begin that championship in a fortnight's time as All-Ireland favourites. It's a tag they are used to.

"The championship is a different kettle of fish. Ulster is a minefield and we are in a very tough section," says Kernan. "If people want to make us favourites for the All-Ireland, that is up to them, it doesn't make the task any easier for us."

Kernan has gradually introduced the latest breed of talented footballers into his team. Yesterday, those youngsters came of age. "People were saying we should have brought the under-21s in last year, but we didn't think the time was right.

"I think those lads have matured. Look at the performance of Andy Mallon what a player and Brian Mallon. But some of the older boys still have a bit of football to play as well."

For Kernan, the most encouraging aspect was how complete Armagh's performance was. Six points ahead at the interval, they didn't rest on their lead; instead they ensured they got the job done.

"That's happened a few times before when we didn't perform in the second half. We kept at it out there, even near the end, lads like Oisín [McConville] tracking back, tackling back, helping out the defence. That shows how much is in this team."

Steven McDonnell had one of those afternoons when he seemed to operate on a different plane from any other footballer. Afterwards, he barely had time to reflect on his display before focusing on Fermanagh.

"I am happy to be scoring like that with a couple of weeks to go to the championship. But we have to start thinking about the championship now. Fermanagh are dangerous opposition."

As Armagh refocused, Wexford returned to the scene of the crime. So it was, that, 40 minutes after getting the runaround from Armagh yesterday, Pat Roe's side were back in the middle of the Croke Park pitch for a spot of straight talking.

For all that, Roe need look no further than his native Laois to understand that a mauling on League final day is no barrier to Championship success. Two years ago, Tyrone wiped the floor with a previously unbeaten Laois side that ended up winning provincial honours for the first time in 57 years.

"We'll see what effect it will have in the next couple of weeks," reflected Roe, as thoughts turned to their meeting with Carlow on June 5. "I brought them out here to have a chat with them about setting our goals for Leinster. I've been clear from the start that our goal is winning Leinster and we're back here in five weeks time against Carlow.

"Armagh were just superb on the day. Steven McDonnell gave a masterclass. It's a learning curve for us and Armagh are definitely a team you look to learn from. We'll sit down and look at what happened today and we'll look at the whole league campaign as well.

"Any loss is a setback, especially in a national final. More than anything, I'm happy that we kept going right to the end. We didn't fold up our tents and slink away into the sunset. We kept plugging away and that's a positive."

Matty Forde felt that much of the reason for Wexford's shortcomings up front stemmed from the midfield, where Armagh's hunger, experience and sheer nous paid huge dividends in dictating the play.

"They got their tactics perfectly right but we didn't perform on the day," said Forde. "We lost by seven points but we were six down at half-time and that first-half performance is what cost us the game in the end.

"We didn't get to grips with them in and around the middle third of the pitch. Our midfield probably performed better than they have done all year but we weren't picking up enough breaking balls. That had us on the back foot from the off."

The key for Armagh this year will be consistency. The past couple of years has been a two-shoe shuffle. Excellence, then mediocrity. "Well, we have put in two good performances back to back now," McDonnell said. "And we want to make sure that is three when we meet Fermanagh."