Dick Clerkin says the traditional football played by Armagh in Saturday's Division Three final was "refreshing to watch".

The Orchard County eschewed the modern-day preoccupation with ultra-cautious, conservative, hand-passing-littered fare and instead produced a syle of football more associated with the good old days of catch-and-kick. It was enough to beat Fermanagh at Croke Park and former Monaghan midfielder Clerkin loved it:

"At a time when a prevailing noise of discontent engulfs the style of modern-day football, it is refreshing to watch Kieran McGeeney steer his young Armagh team towards traditional values: long-range kick passing, high fielding and confident score-taking from distance," he writes in The Irish Independent.

"Far from being a team weighed down with squat bars and dumbbells, they are evidently being coached in a style of play that, at times against Fermanagh on Saturday night, was as pleasing to the eye as anything you are likely to see all year.

"Andrew Murnin put in a Man of the Match performance, and his exceptional points on 6 and 16 minutes would be worthy of any coaching DVD. On each occasion Niall Rowland delivered pinpoint passes out of the defence to the ever-available Rory Grugan, who in turn found Murnin inside with similar levels of efficiency and precision.

"Murnin backed himself on each occasion to raise a white flag with confident finishes. No lateral hand passes, no aimless solo running, no shirking of responsibility in front of goal. Okay, there were times similar moves broke down, but fortune favours the brave - with Murnin's decisive, if fortuitous, goal in the 53rd minute after a speculative high ball into the square, a case in point."

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