Hearty glad Armagh are coming in under radar

IT wasn’t so long ago that Joe Kernan and Benny Tierney were disagreeing about what, if any, benefits winning Ulster had for Armagh in the grand scheme of an All-Ireland championship.

Back in 2006, Tierney, then Kernan’s goalkeeping coach and statistician, argued it mightn’t be such a bad thing to lose an Ulster final. That the rigours of the campaign were catching up on them later in the championship.

Kernan, of course, would hear nothing of their provincial success damaging their knock-out chances, even though they won three Anglo-Celt Cups in the four years after 2002 and never followed it up with the ultimate prize.