Before the revival came the decline – and Armagh attacker Rory Grugan felt that sinking feeling more than anyone else.
He has been around the Armagh environment a long time. So long that he shared the dressing room with a 2002 All-Ireland winner in Paul Hearty.
It wasn’t a Celtic Cross but Grugan, too, knew what it was like to win an All-Ireland at Croke Park, vice-captain on the 2009 minor side with an attacking flair that had Armagh fans truly believing their favoured saying - "the future’s bright, the future’s orange."
February 2018: Armagh v Longford
It wasn’t meant to be like this.
Nine years after that minor success, 14-man Longford are three points up on Armagh at the Athletic Grounds as the game ticks into the red.
Ethan Rafferty, an outfielder at that stage, strikes a goal out of the blue and Grugan kicks a late winner, but Armagh’s standing in the game is plain to see. If the Tailteann Cup had been in operation back then, they would have been in it that season.
July 2024: Armagh v Kerry
It wasn’t mean to be like this.
Fifteen years after that minor success, All-Ireland favourites Kerry are dumped out of the championship by big underdogs Armagh, who have had an aversion to winning tight matches.
Not today though. It takes extra-time, of course, but Kieran McGeeney’s side, with nine of the 15 that started against Longford in the matchday 26, find a way through to their first All-Ireland final in 21 years, Galway joining them the day after.
As Kerry launch a ball in for what they hope will be a match-winning goal, Grugan can’t watch. He buries his head behind Aidan Forker on the subs’ bench, hiding away.
Hiding. A word laced with connotation and one unjustifiably thrown at Grugan occasionally during the darker days. It was oft remarked from outside the camp that when the going got tough, he retreated. But inside the camp, he was seen a player with real determination and grit, enough to be appointed captain by McGeeney.
Perhaps the fan frustration manifested from Grugan's lack of championship availability in those early years after joining the panel in 2011 with a massive reputation.
Injuries, and studies in Liverpool and France meant that he wasn't able to nail down a regular spot, with his first championship start not coming until 2016 when Cavan eased past Armagh in Ulster on a day when McGeeney played midfielder, and fringe panellist, Paul Courtney in nets, in a move that backfired.
Forker didn't escape the ire either. He was a player whose lack of discipline was actively targeted by opponents and actively bemoaned by supporters.
Both have been questioned, both have emphatically answered.
This weekend, Grugan and Forker are the two that will lead this team, even if one or both won’t make it to the final whistle.
Grugan has always spoken with wisdom and a maturity beyond his years, even in those embryonic stages of his career, and the way the now 33-year-old talks before the Galway game provides further insight to his standing within the squad.
"I suppose as you get that bit older you naturally find yourself in those roles and you have probably heard in all high-performance environments now about leadership groups and all that type of stuff," Grugan said.
"Shared leadership is probably the more modern and effective way of these environments and it's something that Geezer [McGeeney] has been very big on from the very start.
"Most coaches you hear now talk about things being player-driven and that you have to hold each other accountable to standards - when it comes to how you train and how you represent yourself away from the field and how you play on the field - and that's been no different with us.
"We've got a great management team who all cover different areas of tactical play and they've got their roles and then it's down to us as players. We've got what you could call leadership pods and that's a shared leadership model that I think is working for us."
A leader, but one who has had doubts eating at him, regrets too. Impossible not to.
Four penalty shootout losses over the last three seasons, two in Ulster finals and two in All-Ireland quarter-finals. The gallows humour that the penalty kick was created by an Armagh man - William McCrum - five miles out the road in Milford from where Grugan grew up.
Alongside doubts and regret has been resilience.
In the 2023 Ulster final loss to Derry, the Ballymacnab man missed a mark attempt at the end of normal time to secure a first Anglo Celt since 2008. A few weeks later in their crucial All-Ireland group game against the Tribe County, he landed the winning free.
Back on the horse – that's the way it needed to be.
"There's no point saying that at different times you wouldn't have doubted that," Grugan said of his dreams of glory.
"I think that's normal when you've been through difficult days and particularly in the last couple of seasons when we've been at a better level and we've lost really tight games and those penalty scenarios. It would be hard not to have that doubt.
"I suppose if we didn't have total belief in what we were doing the squad wouldn't have stuck together and we wouldn't have had that consistency in our approach. We wouldn't have believed in Geezer the way that we do.
"We knew what we were doing in terms of physical preparation and tactical preparation. I had total belief in what we were doing and we know how fine the margins are.
"That's what kind of kept us going, that belief that your time would come. And it doesn't guarantee you anything. Getting to a final is all well and good but you want to go and win it now.
"I think we definitely had to show that resilience and that belief at times when it would have been easy to walk away."
While emulation of 2002 is the objective, that team’s shadow will forever cast a shadow over Armagh football too when it comes to great expectations.
Just look at McGeeney’s CV as a player – involved in 100% (one) of their All-Ireland success and 43% (six) of their Ulster triumphs having retired just before the county’s last Anglo Celt win in 2008.
That was the last time they had even reached the provincial final before their 2023 return. In the decade before that penalty shootout loss to Derry, Armagh had produced zero Ulster SFC final appearances, zero Ulster Under-20/U21 final appearances, one Ulster MFC final appearance, one Ulster Club SFC final appearance, zero Ulster Club IFC final appearances and zero Ulster Club JFC final appearances.
"You'll probably hear Geezer saying stuff like that about, 'entitlement' is too strong a word, but the idea that we should be successful all the time in Armagh," Grugan continued.
"Paul McArdle [Armagh chairperson] said that we're the fourth smallest county in Ireland in terms of the [playing population] per head. Like, we were spoiled by that team.
"That was a generational team that came in '99/2000 and took us through to win those titles and as supporters, we were spoiled too. Sometimes I wondered over the years was that tainting our expectations of what the level was?
"When you look at the club football scene, Crossmaglen's dominance, and outside of that underage success has been rare for us.
"So it's also a credit to the management that they've built this squad, I suppose, despite that. It's a sure sign that we've believed in what we're doing. We've built a really strong squad that's actually challenging now for top honours."
The biggest honour of all awaits this Sunday. He’s been in the dressing room with All-Ireland winners, now Rory Grugan wants a medal of his own.
Watch the All-Ireland Football Championship final, Armagh v Galway, on Sunday from 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
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