Ciaran McKeever and Armagh's 1% club

"I've had many a slow dance in here," Ciaran McKeever says with a laugh as he takes his seat in front of the press in the Lacey’s suite of the Carrickdale Hotel for Armagh’s media briefing ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland final against Galway.

The Orchard County coach knows the room well, and its side bar Cagney’s (the owners obviously fans of police procedural dramas).

The famous former disco hall provided the backdrop for celebrating big wins and commiserating big losses.

It’s where McKeever, as captain, and the Armagh Under-21s headed to after winning the county’s first All-Ireland at that level in 2004 and it’s where they drowned the sorrows as senior campaigns came to an end in the years following.

If it was still going, the Cullyhanna players would have surely talked their coach into joining them after their All-Ireland Intermediate win over Cill Na Marta back in January.

But of all those nights in the vast room, nothing will hold a candle to this Sunday if they manage to take an extra guest up the road from Dublin for the post All-Ireland final banquet.

Like everything on the side’s journey, the finest of margins are going to make the biggest of impacts.

"You need luck, there’s no doubt about it; you need the rub of the green, the bounce of the ball," said the man those who have ever shared a dressing room with refer to as 'Brooky'.

"There are different aspects we have improved too. We would have been criticised a lot for not seeing out games, not being better on the ball. It was probably a case of we were always trying the right things but maybe not executing in those tight matches going down the stretch.

"Maybe we got lost with the emotions of the crowd and played with the crowd; don’t get me wrong the Armagh crowd is