Aimee Mackin says history-making Armagh ready for next step

Just weeks after a first ever Division 1 football title and the Armagh footballers are looking to claim more silverware.

Two years after losing to Kerry in a Division 2 decider, promoted Armagh swept through the league campaign to make a top-flight decider.

Once again it was the Kingdom in their way, but Aimee Mackin and Kelly Mallon combined for 1-09 as the Orchard County broke new ground.

Mackin has been in sensational form this year, picking off 3-12 in March alone on her way to scooping the PwC GPA Women's Player of the Month Awards.

Prior to the league final former Waterford player Michelle Ryan said the three-time All-Star was the player of the league, backing that up with 1-04 at Croke Park.

"I wouldn’t say every game was perfect for myself," she said. "In the league final, I wasn’t great in the first half, but throughout the league, as a team, we were all about staying in the moment."

The 27-year-old was absent for last year’s championship exit at the hands of Cork, and says the league success is a great building block.

"It was brilliant for us," she told RTÉ Sport. "It’s a great achievement. It’s big for us as a county to be in Division 1, playing those teams week in, week out."

Mackin’s return from Australia, where she followed sister Blaithin to Melbourne FC in the AFLW, has been a huge boost for the county, and the player herself is revelling being back in the inter-county environment she first entered in 2015.

It’s the fourth year in a row Armagh and Donegal will contest an Ulster final, with Mackin’s side just edging the head-to-head, though it was the Tir Chonaill women that emerged victorious 12 months ago.

That loss for Blaithin and Aimee was compounded by her brothers also tasting defeat in the men’s Ulster