The footballers of Armagh and Tyrone are no strangers to the twists and turns of the championship highways, nonetheless the Ulster neighbours are about to embark upon a road less travelled.
History suggests the preliminary round of the Ulster senior football championship is more quicksand than springboard in terms of launching a team’s summer campaign.
Donegal in 2012 are the only team to have won the Sam Maguire from starting out in the preliminary round of the Ulster SFC.
The stats aren’t exactly encouraging in terms of lifting the Anglo Celt either, with preliminary-round teams only winning the Ulster title on seven occasions.
READ MORE
Last November’s provincial championship draws paired Armagh and Tyrone in Ulster’s preliminary round. Needless to say, it was immediately deemed the biggest opening fixture across all four provinces.
And while all eyes will be on the Athletic Grounds this Sunday, it remains a long way from the Ulster preliminary round to Croke Park.
Donegal played 11 games in last year’s championship, from beating Derry in the Ulster SFC preliminary round in April to July’s All-Ireland final defeat to Kerry.
Indeed, Donegal are prelim specialists, having claimed Ulster glory from that unfavourable starting point on four occasions – 2011, 2012, 2018 and 2025.
Until Donegal’s 2011 breakthrough, the feat had only been managed twice previously – by Cavan in 1945 and Armagh in 2005.
Cavan also negotiated a path to Ulster glory from the preliminary round in the Covid-impacted 2020 season – meaning five of the seven Anglo Celt triumphs from the opening round have taken place over the last 15 years. But in total, only three counties have safely come through Ulster via that route.
The preliminary round is required in Ulster to produce an eighth team to make up four quarter-finals.
Traditionally, the preliminary round pairing was determined as part of an annual open draw for the Ulster SFC. However, in 2018 the provincial council announced a deviation whereby, from 2020, teams drawn to play in the preliminary round would be granted a two-year exemption from that stage of the competition.
Therefore, just five teams are eligible each season for that round.
Monaghan, Cavan, Donegal and Derry were excluded from the prelim draw for this year’s Ulster SFC as they had played in that game over the last two seasons (Monaghan v Cavan in 2024, Donegal v Derry in 2025).
For the 2027 Ulster SFC draw, the four counties will be Donegal, Derry, Armagh and Tyrone.
Donegal won Ulster and contested the All-Ireland final from the prelim round last year but in 2024 Cavan, after beating Monaghan, were knocked out of Ulster at the quarter-final stages.
Armagh enter Sunday’s fixture as favourites. Tyrone endured a lacklustre spring in which they won only two matches in Division Two and finished closer to the relegation positions than the promotion spots.
Armagh retained their Division One status after playing out a draw with Kerry in their last league game. However, even in the aftermath of that result, manager Kieran McGeeney was not about to play down the challenge of Malachy O’Rourke’s Tyrone.
“Tyrone are a very good team, always have been, they never go too far away,” said McGeeney. “They’ll be not too happy with their own league performances, a bit like ourselves. There are games they definitely could have won.
“They’ll have their eye on this game from a long way out. Tyrone and Armagh is usually a little bit feisty.”
Armagh’s preparations were somewhat discommoded when they had to abandon a planned training camp in Carton House as the facilities were prepared for soccer instead in advance of Manchester United’s arrival this week.
But speaking at the recent Ulster championship launch, Armagh coach Conleith Gilligan insisted nobody in the Orchard dressingroom will be taking the challenge of Tyrone lightly.
“The fact that the league is done now, every team’s looking for that one big win to ignite their summer,” he said.
“From a Tyrone perspective, going to Armagh to do that would be high on their list of priorities.”
