Playing it again with Sam in mind

Keith Duggan on what may be the start of a beautiful rivalry between Armagh and Kerry

Tomorrow morning, the All-Ireland champions will fly over the plains of southern Ireland and into the football dominion of Kerry. The aptness of the metaphor will not be lost on this most introspective of squads.

The early signs of Armagh's post-September existence suggest that they have lost none of their local pride or the respect for the greater environment that nourishes them. They are the most approachable of All-Ireland teams and the most discreet.

Part of Armagh's appeal is that they are a difficult bunch to read. All of the players seem bonded to a set of values inherited from previous generations. While the orange jersey is as avant-garde and pleasing as any that graces the GAA spectrum, the team of men underneath is low-key and balanced and self-possessed.

Landing the county's first All-Ireland senior championship appears not to have unhinged this team in the slightest. Much of that must be down to manager Joe Kernan. These days the affable Crossmaglen man is relaxed and unhurried. Over the years it was learned no matter how much Joe knew, he was never afraid to ask. Never became so confident or blasé he would assume there was nothing others might still tell him.

So having achieved - and this is not an exaggeration - immortality in his county last September - Big Joe did what he had done all along. He picked up the phone and asked other managers who had been where he was then what the next step was. How to deal with the monster of success? And how to deal with the league?

"I did, I must have spoken to five or six people. And the funny thing was that managers whose teams had done well in the league the year after felt that winning the league was a good idea. And those that had not done so well felt that was the way to go. So you know, it all comes down to personal experience.

"What I can say right now is that we are reasonably pleased with where we are in this league. After we come out in Croke Park that first day in Dublin, people were saying, 'oh, ye are going at it too early, ye are showing too much'. But it wasn't as if we came out intending to win like that. It was just one of those games and I think it has settled since then."

The sight of the orange in Kerry will be poignant. Magnanimous though the Kerry legions were - "The only consoling point for me today is that it is Armagh that beat us," observed Páidí Ó Sé after the final whistle - the memory of the loss will be painful.

The turbulence and talking points of the Ó Sé era have perhaps detracted a little from the undoubted success. Speaking earlier this week, the Ventry man admitted he relished the prospect of hosting Armagh, that it was a prospect that genuinely thrilled him. But the striking thing about Kerry's mixed league experience has been how aged several of the contentious issues have become.

The return of Maurice Fitzgerald has become the most eagerly awaited sequel since the Jedi and it took a recent statement from the Cahirciveen man to quiet the issue. For now.

More problematic has been the filling of the full back position. It is an issue that must be beginning to haunt the Kerry selectors and one for which the players may well be reluctant to audition for fear of succumbing to the kind of injury that has stricken the county's first, second and third choices.

Another worry has been the apparent dulling of the shine demonstrated so memorably by the Cooper prodigy last summer.

This league has not suited the boy wonder but it could just be that the soft ground hinders him.

Kerry are too worldly to attach great significance to league games but winning against Armagh would probably restore a little of the confidence that the second-half reversal of fortune in the All-Ireland inflicted on them.

Radiant with conviction as Armagh were at the close of that match, Kerry arguably came within one point - and they had several facile chances - of closing the deal. In a time when the winning of All-Irelands is a brutally tolling business, that knowledge is hard to leave behind. Meeting their northern opponents once again will at least offer a measure of closure.

Armagh are in the ideal position in that this game is of no material consequence. Lose and they close with a decent record. Win and they potentially advance to the semi-finals and possibly cause Kerry's demotion in the process. Kernan is equivocal as to which path he would prefer.

"I'll tell you that after Sunday. Like, when we started out we didn't put in any big effort, we just took each game as it occurred and lucky enough, we won the first four games on the trot. And that was great but then the whole issue of being unbeaten since April of last year started to become a thing and it was beginning to spiral so that I was beginning to wonder where it was going to end. So when we were beaten by Tyrone eventually, I was very disappointed that evening. I think we all were. But on reflection a few days later, it did us no harm.

"We are getting to a stage where the championship is only weeks away and it wouldn't have done any good going in with this unbeaten thing hanging over us. So now, it's just a question of getting good, competitive football in the build-up to the Ulster championship and it doesn't get much better than playing in Kerry."

Ó Sé is singing from the same hymn book. The attractiveness of Division One A has been notable, even if it has come at the detriment of its corresponding group and a re-run of the All-Ireland final on the last day of regular league fare is as good as it gets. It may be mark-two in what is developing into the first real rivalry of 21st century football.