Eoin Sheahan

And you'd have to say the surprise package of the year so far, if not saying pats at the top of the table, Dundalk flying high in third, is this going to be the moment that shells are going to turn things around?

Quite possibly, but you're right.

It's a relegation battle and if Dundalk keep winning, who knows where their season might actually go.

They're flying high in third.

It's fair, isn't it?

Yeah, it was an astonishing result yesterday.

And there's so much lore almost coming out of the game immediately.

Conor Laverty, the down manager, gave this remarkable interview to the assembled press after the game where he was asked about the outside noise and people writing his team off.

Did he read into this?

And he was like...

No, you can't really lean on that.

And then he revealed that his screensaver for the last three weeks had been a typo on an RTE graphic, which had said that on May the 3rd, it would be Donegal versus Armagh slash Tyrone instead of Donegal slash Down versus Armagh slash Tyrone.

So he took that personally, to use the words of Michael Jordan.

And I'm not sure, was it just some sort of self-motivation that he showed to his players well in advance?

Right before.

Yeah, like it does.

I think there is a lot to be said for that sort of motivation.

And we see that, you know, when it gets to the championship and it gets to these provincial games, the intensity and the quality of football and the stakes, they all just feel infinitely higher than if these two same teams met in the league.

And that's probably more of a point about the hurling, but it pertains to the football as well.

And it just feels that everybody is just highly charged when it comes to particularly their first game in the championship.