Goalkeeper Blaine Hughes spoke to us after Armagh booked their place in the All-Ireland Final for the first time since 2003, defeating Kerry this evening.
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00:00Blaine, first and foremost, congratulations. It's a great win for Armagh. How is everybody
00:04feeling in that dressing room?
00:05Oh, cheers, yeah. Delighted. It's the first all-out final, so it's hot. It's good to get
00:11over the line and get pressure for an all-out final.
00:14Taking on Kerry today, probably fair to say everyone thought it was going to be a fairly
00:18evenly matched game. Maybe Kerry came in as a slight favourite, but you showed no fear
00:20and you've proven now that Armagh, they belong at the top table.
00:23Oh, absolutely, yeah. We know the way we play and we know what we're capable of. If it wasn't
00:28for one of our best performances, to say the least, but we showed a bit of determination
00:33then towards the end in action time.
00:35Five points down. Was there ever a worry that the game was slipping away from you? It's
00:38a serious character to call a bargain.
00:40No, no. I think the group that we have now at the moment, I think we would have dug everything
00:45out there. We were five points behind. There was no signs of it, so it was all about putting
00:49our heads down and pushing on, more so, instead of being as passive as it's.
00:52You've had tough times, Armagh, in terms of penalty shoot-out defeats, coming a broke
00:56part and not getting over the line. But again, the word that really, for me, about this Armagh
01:00team is resilience. Jesus is coming back. So, take Donnie Gall a few weeks ago. He's
01:04lost another penalty shoot-out. The mood, I imagine, was low, but how do you find that
01:08with the Indians to keep going? How have you managed to get yourselves into this now, Armagh?
01:11I think it's just the group of players that we have and the management pushing us on.
01:15The management has been massive for us there, just keep pushing us on in relation to, say,
01:18the likes of Donnie Gall there in penalties and us being beaten in action time and stuff
01:21before. We know it's an extra time, because we've had that story before. So, we were lucky
01:29enough to get over the line there and we've been there before. So, we're just all delighted
01:33now. Delighted that we won, more so than anything else.
01:35How much belief do you take from this?
01:36Oh, absolutely, massively. We're playing one of the best teams in the country, as you
01:40said, and the likes of Galway. I would say Galway pepped Dublin there last week. We knew
01:44that we had a chance regardless of that, but we're just seeing that they've given us a
01:47wee bit more hope that we can push on now.
01:49Final question, I have to ask you about John McFarlane. How good did that feel?
01:52Unbelievable. You could see them in the hill there after the game, it was unbelievable.
01:57They were going electric. I'd say in two weeks' time they'll be even more mental out there now.