Armagh have the momentum behind them to claim national silverware at Croke Park on Sunday, according to Waterford great Michelle Ryan.
The Orchard County will face reigning Lidl National Football League champions Kerry in the Division 1 final and while the Kingdom will feel confident of retaining their crown on route to tackling longer-term ambitions, Ryan backed Armagh to have a strong chance at the weekend despite suffering a heavy defeat to Dublin in their last round-robin fixture.
"Armagh are coming in with a lot of momentum," she told RTÉ 2fm's Game On.
"After that loss in 2022 in the league final against Kerry, they won the Division 2 league final against Laois last year and they have really just flown through the Division 1 league right up until that last game.
"I don't think we can analyse that last game. They were already qualified for the league final, a very heavy loss to Dublin, nine or ten changes from the starting team.
"But up until that point, they really had been flying and firing on all cylinders, especially in attack and I think (the two teams are) coming in with very different perspectives."
Ryan added that a successful tilt at the All-Ireland appears to be Kerry's primary focus.
"Kerry management from the get-go in the league have been eager to go that the All-Ireland is really their focus this year," she said.
"They've had the league success in the last two years, they've tasted a little bit of silverware, they've lost two All-Irelands and that really has been their focus.
"And we see with the amount of players they've been using throughout the league as well that it really is about that depth in the panel and trying to settle on, not just on a starting XV but a finishing XV as well, for later in the year."
In contrast, Armagh appear to be that "little bit more settled" than an experimenting Kerry at this time of the year, according to Ryan, who also praised one of the team's stars, Aimee Mackin, as "player of the league so far".
"With Armagh I think it's just about keeping that momentum going and really going from strength to strength," she said.
"They haven't been making as many changes in each game as Kerry have been. I think they're coming in with a nice bit of power behind them and a nice bit of confidence and I think it's going to make a very interesting battle and even though Kerry have saved their focus on later in the year, no players going into this Sunday will not want to win this game. I'm slightly fancying Armagh to be honest."
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Watch Monaghan v Cavan in the Ulster Football Championship on Sunday from 3.15pm on RTÉ2, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to updates from all matches on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
