It is the time of year for platitudes, those uncertain few weeks when most teams retire for solitary fine-tuning on hard ground and those few still interested in league fare warmly welcome the prospect of early silverware while simultaneously insisting that earning it wouldn't cause them so much as a heartbeat.

In other years, Paul McGrane watched on as lads from Derry or Donegal talked the oft-maligned contest up a treat, and this year he obligingly does the same, albeit with a proviso.

"There seems to be different schools of thought on the league, as to whether it benefits a team to win it or not," he says. "Some teams, maybe Kildare or Derry for instance, maybe didn't lay that much weight on it this year. I suppose Offaly got off on a run with it last year and then went out in the first round, so it's hard to know.

"For us, well, we'd love to win this, but regardless of what happens we'll be back training on Tuesday night, using the programme we would have been following anyway, even had we not made the play-offs."

Armagh, fancied for a couple of years now as Ulster championship incumbents, have placed their faith in the league route this year as they prepare for their first round championship match against Donegal.

"That's a big game for us surely, one for which we have been preparing for quite a while," McGrane says. "But the league play-offs haven't pushed that to the side or anything, we are just training away and we'll go out onto Croke Park on Sunday with a match to try and win, same as all year, and then get back to what we were doing."

McGrane has spent the winter scooping midfield ball along with Jarlath Burns, and the high percentage of quality possession won has seen the team's versatile forward unit begin to purr.

"Paul's style of play really complements Jarlath," offers Armagh co-manager Brian Canavan. "He is very athletic, a good fetcher and he generally runs the field while Jarlath stays at home more so. They work well together and, obviously, Paul has become a very important part of this team.

"He's a nice, quiet spoken lad, but whenever he does say anything in the dressing-room, he automatically commands attention, the players respect him. That goes back to 1992 when he captained the minor side."

McGrane is just looking forward to the game. "Dublin look like the real thing, they certainly did well enough against Kildare. I suppose there is always pressure on Dublin teams to succeed and Tommy Carr has worked this bunch hard. It'll be a good, hard league game."