Big Joe delivers on his promise

Armagh reaction:   He promised. In blackest November, when everyone said the orange furnace was spent, Joe Kernan stood up and quietly promised his players that they could shape such a day.

Big Joe looms large in the last quarter of a century of Ulster football, as a thundering midfielder from the bittersweet September of 1977, as a laconic cult figure in his home town of Crossmaglen, and now as the maker of this. The Miracle.

"It's going to take a long while to sink in but in the history books it will always be there," he says finally.

Kernan stored the lessons of that 1977 loss deep in his heart and over the course of this summer used words and memorabilia to make sure that history would not repeat itself. Being here as manager is his compensation.

"Ah, this is far better," he says.

"Because you are dealing with players and you know how players feel and I was through the mill and I watched them this last two or three years going through the mill here. It wasn't pretty but they showed unbelievable character to take all the things that they took in the last few years. I'm watching someone carrying the cup there now and it's just amazing. I thought we would never see it."

When Joe was a superstar, Oisín McConville was still in the pram. They have had some fine days in Crossmaglen since then but never anything as cosmic as this.

"Unbelievable," grins McConville. "I've never had such a feeling in my life. Twenty five years trying to achieve one thing and you eventually achieve it. It will be a long time before we realise what we did out there."

He is standing in the same spot where he went through an agonising five minutes at half time. After seeing his penalty pushed away by Declan O'Keeffe, McConville had a bit of soul searching to do.

"The keeper made a good save and my head did drop for a while," he says.

" When I went in at half-time the boys picked me up - some of the younger boys, like Ronan Clarke and Stevie, were just saying 'keep going, keep plugging and it will come off for you', and I just said to myself I'd give it one last effort, we were 35 minutes from an All-Ireland and I knew I'd get a chance and thankfully, I stuck it away. I could have been the villain for the rest of my life."

So, from zero to hero, just like that. "Ah, I dunno about hero but I'll not get as much stick anyhow. But to be honest, in the second half I forgot about the penalty. What was I going to do? There was no point in hiding. Out there in front of 80,000 people there was no place to hide.

"It was certainly relief on my own behalf but it wasn't really about that. It gave us the confidence to go on and achieve what we set out to do so many months to go. In fairness to Kerry you heard Páidí there and I think he appreciates the work that has gone into it. I don't know where we go from here now."

Benny Tierney knows. Back home is where. It would have been an injustice if Benny had left the squad the year before they reached Nirvana. No Armagh All-Ireland would be complete without Benny's unique style of Mullaghbawn rapspeak. "I figured if they got a goal in the first half, it was trouble," he is saying. "They had about three chances - I don't know who came down to the end line, Brosnan I think, but it was about three inches wide and if that went in, well the heads might have slumped. But how can you doubt this team. We are about character, integrity and the best players in Ireland because we are All-Ireland champions.

"We said we dug ourselves a hole and now we had to work to get out of it. We were poor in the first half but we came out in the second and we showed who we are. Our defence was outstanding. Justin McNulty intercepted three balls in the last five minutes and he was amazing, a winner."

Sitting in the corner is the quiet Diarmuid Marsden, so long the golden boy of Armagh football but a more subtle presence this summer. Until the Hour. Class, after all, is permanent. "I just kept doing the same things as I have been doing every game," he explains.

"Today I got room for a few chances and they went over. But the main thing is the team came through this together. For me and for all of us, this is a dream come true."

And so to the wonderland of Cross, Armagh and Mullaghbawn, the centre of the football universe for 2002.

"I can't wait for the homecoming now," whoops Stephen McDonnell.

But he can rest easy. The endless wait is over.