Hard cross for Kernan to bear

FIRST Omagh and now Crossmaglen. For eight years, Armagh and Tyrone have held Ulster football in their vice-like grips but the twin towers of the northern game both came a cropper on home soil against their provincial brethren this weekend.

Armagh’s demise, and the manner of it, was the more surprising because Derry were five times, not five points, the better side.

Though glancing anxiously over their shoulders at the Division One exit door, the Ulster champions were outplayed and, worse, outfought, in their own back yard by a side who approached the game with troubles of their own besides the league table.