LAST WEEKEND’S elimination of Armagh from the championship and Tyrone’s defeat in the Ulster semi-final represented changed fortunes for the two counties that drove the Northern challenge during the last decade with four All-Irelands in seven years.

Peter McGrath managed the Down side that won two All-Irelands in 1991 and ’94, bookending the most successful Ulster run in history as Donegal and Derry added their first titles in between. He says that whereas certain counties might be in transition it doesn’t mean that the province is, as long as others can maintain a serious championship challenge.

“You’re looking at the decline of Armagh but it’s 10 years now since they won the All-Ireland even if they won a number of Ulster championships in the years that followed. I think their talent pool is shallower than Tyrone’s.

“Last weekend I thought Tyrone played well against Donegal and they’re going to be hard to beat from now on but they’ve also reached the stage where they need to give players time – as well as get Seán Cavanagh and Kyle Coney back from injury. It’s going to take Mickey Harte a year or two to mould a new team capable of challenging for the All-Ireland.

“Down getting to the All-Ireland final two years ago was unexpected so getting to the Ulster final represents progress and Down are always capable of nearly anything but Donegal appear more likely to carry the All-Ireland threat from the province. I think they’ll need to win Ulster because it would be a setback if they didn’t but already they look better than last year.”

Coincidentally next week’s Ulster final revisits the pairing that proved the springboard for a period of unprecedented success for the province, 21 years ago. Donegal and Down are Ulster’s most recent All-Ireland standard bearers, the former giving Dublin an immensely hard time in last year’s semi-final and the latter coming within a random hit of winning the 2010 final.

The counties have been in this position before. During the 1990s they beat each other once apiece when the others were Ulster champions – and in Down’s case in 1995, All-Ireland champions. But the last provincial final between them was 21 years ago when Down not alone surprised their opponents but went on to win that year’s All-Ireland, the first that didn’t go to Munster or Leinster in 23 years.

That 1991 victory also triggered one of the most significant sequences in modern Gaelic games – the rise of Ulster football. Down’s win that year was the start of a period of unprecedented success for the province. Up until 1991 Ulster had accumulated eight All-Ireland football titles, five for Cavan and three for Down, stretching back to 1932 and the most recent of which had happened in 1968.

In the 18 years that followed Ulster doubled that total by winning another eight, spread between five different counties, four of which had never previously won Sam Maguire.

“Donegal had won (Ulster) in 1990,” says McGrath, “but we were coming from nowhere. They were favourites and more experienced whereas Down hadn’t won Ulster for 10 years. We didn’t feel any great pressure and on a given day felt we could beat anyone.

“Donegal played football and even though they hand-passed a lot then as well they weren’t defensive. Their style suited us because it wasn’t at that stage overly physical and we could play to our agenda, putting first-time ball into the forwards. There wasn’t the same emphasis on tactics back then so it was simply a question of who’d out-shoot the other and we did.”