By Shaun Casey

ALL-IRELAND champions Armagh will be unbackable favourites to secure a spot in the Ulster Championship semi-finals this weekend and see off Antrim at Corrigan Park with the minimum of fuss.

In recent championship clashes in 2023 and 2021, played at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds, the Orchard men cruised to victory, winning by nine and 13 points respectively.

But experienced defender Paddy Burns, who wore the captain’s armband against Mayo in the league and slotted home his first ever goal in the same game, won’t be fooled by bookmakers’ odds. He knows his side can’t take anything for granted on Saturday.

That has happened before in the Orchard County. Time and time again Kieran McGeeney’s men were on the cusp of a breakthrough, only to fall on the big day. Burns points to his own championship debut as the perfect example.

“We’ve been there before. I made my championship debut way back in 2018 against Fermanagh, where we went in as hot favourites and didn’t take the right attitude into that game,” recalled Burns, a Down GAA Club All-Star winner with Burren last year.

“We’ve had those experiences before so it’s just about treating it as any other game. Antrim have a home draw, they have the crowd on their side, it’s going to be a tight pitch, tight packed crowd.

“The atmosphere will be good and it’ll very much be hostile towards us. We just need to find a way to perform in those circumstances and Kieran and the backroom team will be doing everything they can to have us ready to do that.”

Home advantage. It’s a big thing in the Ulster Championship and after a lengthy standoff with Ulster GAA, Corrigan Park has been appointed as the venue for this first round clash and Burns was in agreement with the Antrim cause.

The Saffrons, led by Andy McEntee and the players, were adamant that if the game was to be played in Páirc Esler, Newry, which it had originally been fixed for, they weren’t turning up. All that has thankfully been resolved and the two teams will do battle this weekend.

“It’s nice to get it sorted and put an end to the messing about,” Burns added. “Obviously there’s different parties involved and everyone has their own interests. I’m sure that Ulster GAA are looking at a McKenna Cup that they’ve lost and the finances that come with that.

“You can understand them wanting to get it in a bigger ground but if we were Antrim, we’d be doing the exact same thing. A home draw is a home draw and it’s up to the powers that be to figure out in the future how to avoid similar scenarios.

“I would say they probably assumed it was going to be in Corrigan anyway, I know that was our assumption. They were always going to get their way and it was always going to be in Corrigan and rightly so.

“There was a selfish part of me for a brief period when I saw it was set for Páirc Esler – I was rubbing my hands because it’s five minutes from where I live. Corrigan is where they’re used to playing so they’re going to be delighted that they got what they asked for but it only made sense.”

Heading into the championship, Armagh could well be chasing their third Ulster Championship on the trot, but instead, Burns and his teammates are trying to end a 17-year wait for the Anglo Celt.

Back-to-back final appearances saw Armagh come so close but yet so far. On both occasions, they lost out to Derry and Donegal via penalties and their long, drawn out, painful history with the Ulster Championship continues.

They are the All-Ireland champions of course, but there’s not a single Ulster medal inside that Armagh changing room. As another provincial campaign gets underway, Burns is quick to point out that despite having Sam, when it comes to the Ulster Championship, Armagh are still very much the hunters rather than the hunted.

“We didn’t win this championship last year so we’re not quite the hunted,” added the 32-year-old. “We’ve gone through the league being the hunted already and that’s part and parcel of being previous champions and we’ve got used to that.

“We’ve played a number of teams who will possibly rightly feel they should have beaten us last year and who were out to prove a point. It’s going to be no different I assume in the Ulster Championship or in any game we play this year.

“That’s just something you have to get used to and you have to deal with and we’re learning that all the time. We’re getting better at it but there’s still plenty of learning to be done and we’ll continue to do that.”