FIVE months on from that famous, historic day at Croke Park, Armagh’s eyes are on the future and the upcoming season rather than in the past says All-Ireland winning defender Paddy Burns.
Running up and down the field on their training ground at Callenbridge has soon brought the boys back down to earth admits the Burren clubman, who picked up a Down Club Allstar award for his performances in the club championship.
But Burns can still let his mind drift back towards July and the days and weeks that followed Armagh’s second ever All-Ireland title.
“I think a few weeks of preseason training and you very quickly forget about five months ago to be honest,” laughed the Allstar nominee.
“It’s well sunk in and nearly forgotten at this stage but it’s nice to talk about it still every once in a while. I think it was it was probably more than I thought it was going to be.
“You hear athletes and sports people talk about how these kind of things can be anticlimactic whenever it happens but for me it was it was more than I ever thought it was going to be.
“All of the nights out and fun times and events that we’ve had since then, nothing will top the Athletic Grounds return on the on the Monday when the place was full, that’s something I’ll never forget. That was such a great day.”
Armagh are back competing in the top tier of the National League and this time they have a target on their backs. Kieran McGeeney’s men are the All-Ireland champions and every team in Division One will be eager to knock them off their perch.
Armagh kickstart their campaign with an All-Ireland final repeat against Galway at the end of January and will also travel to Kerry and Donegal. The Orchard County will enjoy home contests against Tyrone, Mayo, Dublin and Derry as well.
“There’s a manager and a coaching team there that find a way to get you to switch in the next year very, very quickly,” Burns continued. “You can’t think too much about last year whenever you’re running up and down that pitch and just trying to get your breath.
“You just try and take confidence from what we did last year but very much, our eyes are focused on what’s coming, and we know that there’s a lot of teams who are obviously out to try and beat us but also everybody starting from ground zero again with the change of rules.”
Burns did get to see the new rules up close and personal in the inter-provincials as he lined out for a winning-Ulster team. He also got the test them in Armagh’s recent ‘Crimbo Cracker’ charity game but believes only time will tell if they are a success or not.
“It’s all positive for now, until we see how they how they feel whenever we’re actually playing, it’s hard to know,” Burns added. “The inter-provincials were a good example of it, they looked good, but it wasn’t a real game.
“Until there’s something real on the line it’s going be hard to see how well they go and how well thought out they are. But listen, the people who came up with them seem to have a good reason behind them, so we’ll give them a chance and see how it goes.”