Brian Kennedy ready to hunt rivals Armagh down

Tyrone footballer Brian Kennedy poses for a portrait before a media conference at the Carrickdale Hotel in Dundalk, Louth ahead of the upcoming Allianz Football League Division 1 match between Tyrone and Dublin. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

Maybe the Carrickdale Hotel wasn't the best place to meet Tyrone captain Brian Kennedy for a football chat.

The well-known Ravensdale establishment was used by bitter rivals Armagh as their base for last year's All-Ireland success.

The picturesque venue next to the M1 motorway was a sea of orange in July as Orchard supporters partied hard with the players after wrestling back Sam.

Watching it all unfold, and sampling the venue on Wednesday for himself at an Allianz League media event to promote Sunday's crucial clash with Dublin, has certainly lit a fire in Kennedy.

He grew up in the 2000s when the counties were the best of enemies, regularly contesting Ulster and All-Ireland finals, and agreed the Red Hands have more motivation to succeed than usual this year.

"It's massive, there's definitely a feeling of envy," said Kennedy of Armagh's success. "And I suppose they had the same with us winning in 2021. They weren't far away at that stage either.

"They made great strides in terms of All-Ireland contention in the past number of years and probably deserved that one last year. It's just about chasing them now. 

"But you saw the standard they set and it's about us hunting them down and hopefully getting that next one for ourselves as well."

The problem for Tyrone is that they're not the only county energised by Armagh's surprise All-Ireland win.

It's shaping up as the most open All-Ireland race in years with all of this year's Division 1 teams taking points off eachother so far.

Tyrone, with two wins and a draw from six games, need to beat Dublin in Omagh on Sunday to be sure of staying up.

After that it's about trying to rekindle the spirit of '21 when they blazed a Championship trail to All-Ireland success.

"You're looking at nine, 10 teams that fancy their chances on any given day to put out any of the other top teams and get a good run," said Kennedy. "It feels a lot more attainable this year, especially with the new rules.

"A game can go any way at any particular time. If you're in the game on 60 minutes, anything can happen, you can pull away or it can go the other way.

"Good teams are getting better as well. Dublin and Kerry maybe slumped there for a few years but they've definitely come back with serious youth and serious panels. And the new rules are helping them as well.

"The kicking game of Kerry that you saw at the weekend, they're going to bring that into the Championship and it'll be hard to overcome."

Kennedy has started all six of Tyrone's Division 1 league games this season. New boss Malachy O'Rourke has stuck largely with a settled core, handing starts to just 24 different players in the league.

The pressure is on to put things right in 2025 because Tyrone have only won six of the 15 Championship games they've contested since that landmark 2021 campaign.

Relegation to Division 2 would be a bad start to life under former Monaghan and Glen boss O'Rourke.

"It's basically a Championship match for us - it's a knock-out," said Kennedy of Sunday's Dublin date. "A win is probably the only result that will do anything positive for us. We know the challenge, we've been watching Dublin all through the league and they've both ground out results and put other teams away well.

"They have serious quality and we know the challenge. We're going to have to up it another few gears from the performances over the past number of weeks to hopefully get out on top."