Paddy Burns grateful Armagh have chance to exorcise their pain in Ulster Final

That will mean little to Kieran McGeeney and the fans, who know that there are no moral victories in Championship football, but it does give the team something to build on; a belief that when it comes down to it, their squad can match up to almost anyone else on the island.

In 2023,, Armagh lost the Ulster Final after Derry’s Ciaran McFaul struck home the decisive penalty, but defender Paddy Burns is just happy that they have an opportunity to put things right on Sunday when they play Donegal for the Anglo-Celt trophy.

“I was chatting to Paddy McBrearty there, and I think that we have a gentleman’s agreement that there will be no penalties. One of us will throw it over our own bars at the end if we have to,” jokes Burns.

“We were very close in normal time last year and then again in extra-time. But we probably should have won it in normal time against what everybody knows now is a really good Derry team.

“It’s not often you get another opportunity so soon to give yourself a chance to undo it. So that’s definitely a big thought for us: ‘Let’s go out and try to give ourselves the best shot at doing what we should have done last year’.”

Unfortunately for McGeeney, the Orchard boss seems to take a lot of the blame for these close defeats, and that’s something that the players want to correct.

Burns has such great admiration for their leader, not least because he could never imagine putting himself through the toil of inter-county management.

“I think you always want to go out and win something for him because we put in a lot of time but… me and Paddy McBrearty were talking there and I asked him if he would ever consider going into county management, and the two of us both agreed ‘absolutely not,” he explains.

“It’s such a difficult job. It takes so much time, so much effort, and I think for the time he has put into us, the stuff he gives us, how well he looks after us, the least we can do is try to give him an Ulster title, and we will be doing our best to do that.

“We turn up, we train, get our rehab done, get our skills done, sit around and have food after, maybe a bit of physio, and we go home.

“Then you can switch off a bit the next day, until about five or six o’clock. Whereas it feels like they [managers] just have a constant barrage of things to do, questions to answer, logistics to sort out, meetings.

“They will have their meetings ahead of training, so they know what they’re trying to do that night and who they’re looking at, what they want to see.

“It seems like they’re in constant conversation, constantly analysing, constantly coming to us with information. I don’t know where they get the hours from, to be honest. It’s not something that I would want to do.”

One new face in the Armagh backroom team is Derry native Conleith Gilligan, and the freshness he has brought with him has given the whole team a lift.

“He brings a bit of craic,” says Burns. “He’s a funny fella, Conleith, and he has got a good way about him.

“He’s a very skilful fella, he still gets involved in training in the warm-ups and stuff, and he kicks some outrageous scores. Then he’s straight over throwing elbows in and ribbing the fellas.

“That’s probably one of the things he brings, away from the tactical nuances. Everyone knows his credentials and what he’s good at. He brings great energy, which is something that Kieran Donaghy brought when he joined and still brings now.

“Conleith is a new voice now, he’s very positive, he brings a great buzz and you feel as though he wants to do the drills with you.

“That gives everyone else the energy to train hard, push on and bring something different.”