Kieran McGeeney: Sometimes your strongest steel is forged in fire

In nine years as Armagh manager, Kieran McGeeney's only silverware was two Division 3 titles in 2015 and 2018. His third trophy, won six years after the last, is the biggest one possible.

It's not even three months since they were written off as perennial hard-luck merchants after another penalty shootout loss in an Ulster final.

Now, Sam Maguire is part of their entourage and in the aftermath of the win, McGeeney, flanked by Tiernan Kelly and Oisín O'Neill, paid tribute to his players' resilience in the face of so many bitter and grueling disappointments.

"To be honest, I'm just delighted for these boys," the manager said.

"Back when we were playing, we got a couple of carrots to keep us going, Ulster championships.

"We had a couple of knock-backs, but these fellas have got knock-back after knock-back after knock-back, and they just keep coming.

"Penalty shootouts, everybody telling them they can't win tight games, can’t beat teams above them... (pause) … (They) gave them a perfect answer. All-Ireland champions 2024.

"Delighted for them, absolutely over the moon. But to do what they’ve done over the last four or five years has been outstanding, to come back and win that one today."

After arriving as a head coach alongside Paul Grimley in 2014, very shortly after he was controversially dumped by Kildare, McGeeney somewhat inevitably stepped up the manager's job the following year.

Armagh had embarked on a run to the quarter-final in 2014, losing narrowly to eventual All-Ireland finalists in a Donegal in a tempestuous game. That campaign was an outlier in the context of the first half of the 2010s. As soon as the year concluded, they were hit by a wave or retirements and opt-outs (the latter being, in time, re-classified as