The brightest star still burns all right, tanned and brilliant and modest as ever. This wasn't quite the virtuoso shows of three summers ago but a memorable turn nonetheless. When this match ticked its last, it was Maurice Fitzgerald orchestrating the breakdown, calmly floating an equalising free towards the orange-splashed Hill end. He seems to have been born for these summery days of heroism and as ever, at the vital time, a million thoughts cascaded through his mind.

"Well, to be honest no, nothing . . . I knew it was all or nothing but at the same time you try and keep your mind clear and go through the motions of the kick without thinking about the actual result. I had a quick look at Dara O Cinneide and I think he was a bit knocked around at the time so I decided to have a go at it. And I'm just delighted it worked out, I feel we deserved the draw."

Earlier in the match, Fitzgerald had trumpeted his return with a goal of typically languid beauty. The movement, evolving out of the blue, broke open a match that had been poised on a knife-edge. He talks it all down to playground simplicity.

"Mmmh . . . I just remember coming on to a Michael Francis (Russell) ball - in fairness to him he won a great ball - and I ran on more in hope really than anything and he ghosted in and more or less put me through the middle. I just had a solo and it opened up and I just hit a shot and luckily enough it hit the back of the net."

But there was still a man to beat then. "Well, I didn't see him. Thanks be to God."

Out in the corridor, Armagh's Kieran McGeeney is sharing his own recollections of that goal. "Aye, it was a good one all right," he laughs. "He came in with his right foot and hit in with his left. But it was a wee bit soft from ourselves - myself and Hughesie (Kieran Hughes) were still there and he got a shot without a tackle. Every time we took a shot there was a Kerry man right there."

McGeeney had another fine day at the heart of Armagh's engine room and, as ever, his energy seemed to spread through the entire half-back line. With an All-Ireland final place drifting across the horizon, it was the two defenders who hauled the northern side back from the brink.

"Yeah, a great goal by Andy (McCann) and a fluke (Armagh's final point) from meself," says McGeeney.

McCann's goal, after a bloody-minded and inspirational charge forward initiated by the half-back himself, was a complicated, meandering wonder.

"Ah, I was disappointed with the second goal," admitted Kerry goalkeeper Declan O'Keeffe. "It was one of those that went under my body and you wouldn't be blatantly blamed for, but it clipped off the cogs and I was very near it but so far away."

In the immediate tumult, a minute into injury time, Armagh surged forward again and McGeeney popped up to calmly angle what looked like the winning score.

"We had an opportunity to kill the game and probably should have but five minutes before that we looked as if we were out of the competition," said Armagh joint manager Brian Canavan.

Kerry defender Seamus Moynihan has touched greatness on many Sundays but yesterday he was outstanding. "They came at us all guns blazing and got the (second) goal, but I mean it's not over 'til the last whistle goes," he said.

Last word to Declan O'Keeffe. "I thought we were gone there for a while. But thanks be to God for Maurice Fitzgerald. We are still in it."