Ulster SFC Final Armagh v Donegal: The disaster that befell Donegal's Ray Sweeney in last year's loss to Armagh is in no way colouring his approach to tomorrow's showdown, as he assures Keith Duggan

They say if you hear the gunshot, you know it is has missed you. That day in Croke Park, Ray Sweeney heard nothing. Eighty thousand people were suddenly switched to mute by a flash of yellow. He believes he said something to the referee, a question he knew to be rhetorical by the expression on Michael Monahan's face, already disengaged and officious.

"You're not sendin' me off?" he pleaded, but his own voice sounded heavy and alien, like an LP playing at the wrong speed. And Monahan replied, "Yeah, you're going", or something like that. He can't remember and it didn't matter anyway. Somebody - Damien Diver as it turned out - came up behind him and tapped him on the back and muttered a consolation, a promise that the others would win it for him, and he felt himself moving away from the scene.

The referee was pocketing his documents like a traffic warden after attaching a fine to a wiper, and Stevie McDonnell, the Armagh forward he had fouled, was creating a mound on the turf, already thinking about the free he was about to tap over the bar.

Full back prepares a man for the unexpected and Ray Sweeney is about as diligent as they come when it comes to getting himself right for a game. But if he is honest, he never for a second expected to do the dead-man-walking act, not in the biggest game of his life.

"It is just something you don't want to think about," he admitted last week in Jackson's Hotel in Ballybofey.

"I just remember running towards the tunnel and trying to get out of the way because there was a cameraman chasing after me. That was the worst part of it. Preparing for a game, you don't really consider getting sent off, and then when it does happen to you, it's a pure head-wreck. I was just gutted. Jim (McGuinness) came running into the tunnel and tried to say some things to help me.

"I felt I had let the boys down. It was a harsh decision but I was on a booking and maybe I should have been more careful. But then, it was very disappointing because there were other players on the field that day that committed more personal fouls and stayed on. That was the hardest thing. I am not mentioning any names but there were higher-profile players than me that would have committed six or seven fouls and weren't even booked for it and that pissed me off, basically. Three times in the entire game and I was done for it."

Sweeney's dismissal was the turning point of last year's All-Ireland semi-final. In his absence, Stevie McDonnell, who would go on to be crowned footballer of the year, was allowed just the chink of space he needs to bury the kind of goal that carries a resonant worth much deeper than three points. The Dungloe defender felt about as low as he has ever done watching the remainder of that game, as his 14 team-mates made a gallant, doomed push to beat the All-Ireland champions anyway.

"Going down home on the bus I said to Niall (McCready), 'Fuck it, we had them.' Because I felt I was doing all right, anyway, under the high ball and Niall and Diver were cleaning up. That was the killer. Because once I went, they had to change their game and the pressure told in the end."

Local opinion was unanimous: it's a shame about Ray. For days afterwards on the streets around Dungloe, people would stop to tell him how unlucky he had been. It made it a little bit easier and probably hastened his desire not to dwell on it.

He moped about it for a day or two and then just pushed on with life, heading back to work in Letterkenny and playing football with his club.

"They way I thought about it was that it was disappointing and all the rest and it was the biggest game of my life. But worse things happen. You move on."

Nearly a year later and Ray Sweeney returns, as if to the scene of the crime with all the evidence perfectly preserved: a shimmering summer Sunday in Croke Park, an Ulster title at stake and the blazing orange jerseys of Armagh out there on the field.

Because of the perceived injustice against Sweeney last year, the popular theory is that Donegal will come back to the city for their third successive season on a self-righteous crusade. But that is not Sweeney's thought.

"The only thing that can definitely be said is that we are a year wiser and so are they. We played Armagh in the last two championships and they beat us twice but we can't go in thinking that because people reckon we owe them one it will all work out for us.

"If we go in with some sort of a revenge mentality, then we lose out straight away. We just want to go out and play our football. As for the hunger factor, well a lot has been made of that this year but hunger is hard to judge. Armagh have their own hurts from last year and that will be in their armoury. It's like the old question about how long is a piece of string. Are we hungry? We hope we are."

Sweeney is the quieter of the most significant brother pairing to make it onto the Donegal team since the era of the McHughs in the early 1990s. Ray is a year and half younger than Adrian. He is tall and naturally athletic, Adrian bulkier and dependent more on strength and extravagant point-taking skills.

While Adrian has developed into a celebrated forward, the go-to man of the attacking unit, Ray has blended into the troublesome full-back position with ease and subtlety. He broke into the Donegal team under Mickey Moran as a refined and progressive-minded wing back but has been converted to number three under Brian McEniff.

"I still think I am getting used to it. I have plenty to learn. The year we played Dublin, as a team we played nice football but it was all new to us, we were naïve. Back then, I was getting up the field a bit and carrying the ball, making the plays.

"Full back is more restrictive. You might only hand-pass the ball from here to the chair and get back to position. But you know you are going to be marking the best forwards in the country and that's where the challenge is. You can never stop thinking, not for a second."

Talk to Sweeney's defensive colleagues - a group he likens to "a small family" - and the same sentiments keep cropping up: dead sound; always there; quiet enough off the field; brilliant to play alongside.

"It's funny, last time we played Armagh I was up in the stands watching it and I never met Ray in my life," says Donegal's rookie goalkeeper Paul Durcan.

"I was just the same as everyone else, going spare when he was sent off. But since I have come in, he's been such a support. He'd never give out to you - he just encourages and makes sure you're covered. He took away whatever doubts you have."

"The thing about Ray," says Diver, "is that he is a joy to play alongside. Like, he was class all year last year anyway. But now you see the confidence coming back again and he is flying."

The Sweeney household was not one of those typically GAA-saturated dwellings. As Ray puts it, there was "never a moment's peace" between the shop, running a small farm, turf, hay and keeping Irish-language students in the summer.

The boys' father, Willie, never saw his sons play live until this season's opening game against Antrim. Someone had to mind the family shop on Sundays and even after his boys began playing for the county, Willie volunteered to stay. Tony Boyle, full forward when Donegal won the 1992 All-Ireland, recalls dropping in to collect the lads for training.

"I would chat away to Willie and sometimes he wouldn't be fully sure about who we were playing on Sunday if it was a league game. Like, he would be pleased that the boys were getting on rightly but his own interest was never massive. He probably never had the time. But I met Miles, a brother of the two boys, for a pint after the Antrim game and Willie was there and he was enjoying the craic all right. I'd say he might make a habit of it yet."

Because football was never a massive deal in the house, the two boys never made much fuss of themselves, even after they had established themselves on the Donegal team.

"There wouldn't be a wild lot of talking out of me and Adie at the best of times," said Ray. "We know what we have to do and get on with it. Even the morning of the match, the two of us would go to Mass together and there would be little said about the match. In the car on the way up, we would be listening to music and there would hardly be a word. That's the way it is: we are probably two quiet people and there would be no wild talking beforehand."

Paired on a field though, their bloodline brings out the streak of passion. Tony Boyle testifies that Ray is a "pure torture as a marker in training" and was never inclined to yield so much as an inch to his brother. Because of that, there is an intense streak to their sparring that many managers feel best left untested. Boyle remembers one evening in Dungloe when the players walked off the field after a game of backs and forwards. When they turned around, the two Sweeney's were still on the field: a chase for the last ball had erupted and they were swinging at each other in mutual fury.

"But the gas thing was that when they had changed, they had to head home together. They were young enough bucks at this stage and they left the dressing-room, steam coming out of their ears, and copped on then that they only had the one car. We were falling around the place at the two of them headin' away still not speaking to each other."

Ray laughs when he considers their onfield relationship. "Right enough, we tear into each other. But the thing is, you always feel that if you are fit to mark Aidy, you can mark the best of them."

The entire Sweeney family plans to head up to Croke Park for the Ulster final, even Willie. "Sure I heard he was so nervous during the Armagh game last year that he was downing whiskey like there was no tomorrow," Ray smiles. "God knows what he will be like up there in Croke Park."

For Ray Sweeney, the meaning of tomorrow's Ulster final is clear-cut. It is not about redemption or a second chance. He is not fully sure whether Diarmuid Marsden or Ronan Clarke or Steven McDonnell will be dispatched to the edge of his square yet. It doesn't matter: they all bring their own strengths and dangers.

"At this level, they are all class. You are always adjusting - high ball, low ball in, lads making runs, peelin' away looking for a short ball off a free. You have to be cautious."

Last time, that wasn't enough. Ray Sweeney thought long and heard him about his experiences the last time Donegal played Armagh in Dublin and then got back to playing football again. Tomorrow is a new day. When he takes the field, the colours will be familiar but the sound that accompanies a fresh 70 minutes of big-time football is the music he has been waiting for.