O’Rourke: Pre-match criticism fuelled us

IT was Aaron Kernan, one of the Armagh stars in this surprise result, who put it best afterwards.

“We sat down at the end of the National League and had a long, hard look at ourselves. We asked ourselves were we improving. How were we progressing from year to year. The fact of the matter was we weren’t. We were limping out of the championship over the last few years and we weren’t playing attractive football. In our first game back at our home ground in 16 years, we were probably outnumbered (in support). That’s a reflection of the quality we’ve played these last few years.”

That home minority among the 13,107 crowd in the Athletic Grounds on Saturday evening will have to see plenty more from Armagh if they are to be convinced the good times may be returning.