"It's his own? We'll forgive him this once. Sure he'll be making bits of enough orange come Sunday I suppose. You watch it, this Ulster is ours.

Ah, but he's a gentleman too, isn't he? And a beautiful footballer. I saw Barry play a club match once for Teemore.

There were two guys twice his size coming in for a high ball and he just leaped up like a basketball player, flicked the ball away from the both of them and he was off. Not a finger laid on anyone. They just watched as he took off out of defence."

Sitting in the Slieve Russell hotel you wonder, as the porter wanders off confidently. You're in Cavan where they supposedly eat their dinner from a drawer. But a few miles up the road, across the border into Fermanagh, the footballers, and hurlers while we're at it, have never had the decency to bring home even a single senior trophy.

No leagues, no Ulsters, no All Irelands. Ever. They've disappeared for hours at a time and spent the groceries' money in the pub, returning home with little to show but an empty wallet and embarrassed faces.

And then there is this bunch. A team that emerged from the controversial removal of Dom Corrigan, from the Gallaghers that had seen enough. A team that reached an All Ireland semifinal and kicked it away in 2004. And now they are still here, threatening to punch above their weight. In the absence of Marty McGrath they've been led by Barry Owens and it turns out the porter was right. He is small.

He isn't the hatchet job fullback, built in the Myra Hindley mould that Ulster too often spits up without regard for full-forwards or the eyes of its children. And he is a gentleman, with the shy nature of a boy of 24 that's rarely wandered far from his roots.

"Now I haven't travelled much, " says Owens surprising nobody. "I was in Hong Kong with the All Stars alright. It was a great experience. A lot more buildings than here. But it's just been work and life near home. I thought about getting away once or twice, getting out of here and football. But with the way football went I never got the opportunity. If you went you'd be the worst in the world with the club and with a lot of people. Going to America crossed my mind but I don't think I'm going to get that opportunity now. I'd have hated to go away and miss winning a club championship with Teemore, or even if Fermanagh had a good run.

I'm not a city boy, I'm an oul' country lad.

"Ah, and maybe a lot of those thoughts would have been when I was younger.

There were some tough times with football. I was playing with the minors, under-21s and juniors with the club and there was county stuff as well.

A lot of that takes its toll very quickly. Maybe I got lazy, I don't know, but I'd have started missing training sessions here and there. I started trying to concentrate on the minors and 21s, I found the senior county stuff too much.

But you come through that.

Now things are better and more enjoyable. And I'd even miss the amount of games back then, being out there with the lads on different teams through the winter."

Not that many of the lads have travelled far from home.

There's a centre of the universe complex amidst the most beautiful countryside you'll see. The bulk of the club and county team work in Quinn's. The bulk of Owens's family too, with Barry employed in maintenance having qualified as an electrician. They all socialise in the one area, play for the same teams, talk the same talk.

"All of us would have been Teemore, the whole way down through generations.

Daddy was playing up until he was 40, so me and my brother were always down on the pitch from the time we were able to wander out of the house. He'd have been just retiring when I was getting into juniors."

And then he tells you he's building soon. Not far from home, but he'll be getting married and they'll move into it. You are taken aback. There is a side away from a conveyor belt of football. "Ay, we met six or seven years ago, out at Slane one day at Robbie Williams. We were down the night before and met then."

Love at first sight? "Ah, after a couple of nights. And the date's been set, October '08.

I'm giving myself plenty of time to save up. Her names Caroline. She gets pissed off sometimes about not getting to go out but I'm sure that happens with a lot of footballers."

Not the Posh and Becks of Fermanagh, Owens is soon back to his quiet, nervous self. Yet this is the man who did jobs on Conal Keaney and Stephen O'Neill earlier this season. This is the man who won an All Star in '04 and must have been surprised and disappointed when failing to win one the previous year.

This is the man who must have been insulted to his very core when Sean Og was called up to the international rules team while he was left behind, at home in Teemore. This is a player who would rival any for the title of Ireland's best number three.

So why the shyness?

"I guess that's just me.

That's my nature. I suppose there are times when I wouldn't say a lot but I can assure you if things aren't going well this Sunday [today] or any other Sunday, I'll be heard around the place. I'll be urging people on and they'll all hear me then."

You must have been hoarse by the end of the league?

"Well, we started the league well, got two victories under our belt and got a bit of confidence. Then came the break and that stopped us in our tracks more or less. The Kerry match was difficult. It was a long trip down there and then the following week we were away again to Mayo.

They were the two table-toppers. We conceded a lot those games and maybe it was just a couple of bad performances. The last game against Offaly in the league [Fermanagh were demolished 4-13 to 2-12 in Enniskillen], well what can you say, maybe our minds weren't there. At the end of the day we were safe and had nothing to play for and they were fighting for their lives.

I'd look more at the Antrim game [in the Ulster quarterfinal]. They aren't a bad team but Armagh. . .

"In the league they had a lot of injuries so their aim would have been to stay up. They did that and that's all that matters. Then they've had players coming up through the ranks, the likes of Ronan Clarke, Aaron Kernan, the two Mallons. They've that experience too, they know how to cope with teams running at them.

It'll take a lot of hard work from ourselves to win it.

Hopefully everyone clicks and things work out."

Perhaps the porter was speaking more in hope than in confidence. Or maybe this is just Owens away from it all.

ULSTER SFC SEMI-FINAL PREVIEW ARMAGH v FERMANAGH Clones, 2.15 Referee J Bannon (Longford) Live, RTE One, 1.45 Has Charlie Mulgrew learned? On 15 May last year Fermanagh went to Clones as All Ireland semifinalists and were blown away.

His side naively failed to vary their kick-out as the Armagh half-back line pushed forward and won any amount of ball. He took Tom Brewster off early despite the fact Fermanagh's only scores had come through the player. In short, he panicked.

Today, they enter not as All Ireland semi-finalists but still as a top-10 county. They enter as a side that will fancy sticking to their own tactics, running hard and fast and quick at an Armagh side that at times has creaked. If Mulgrew's side win it won't be the huge upset many people would believe it to be.

But then again, this is Armagh.

Sure, they have enough Ulsters to last most people a lifetime and what they really crave is an All Ireland. But the two go hand in hand. Armagh's best route to an All Ireland is through yet another Ulster title. That motivation will be given momentum by Oisin McConville (right), who's form has become permanent compared to last season's patchy efforts. Steven McDonnell has a way to go to reach similar status but he owes a big performance and Armagh owe a big tally.

Kieran McGeeney and Paul McGrane may not have the youngest legs at midfield but behind their experience is enough youth to cover and the distribution provided by McGeeney . . . take a look at his pass that left Malachy Mackin to goal against Monaghan . . . will provide the big-name forwards with ample ammunition.

Fermanagh won't be far off come the finish but that will be of little consolation if they see Armagh line out against either Donegal or Derry in the Ulster decider.

Verdict Armagh by three ARMAGH C McKinney; A Mallon, T McEntee, E McNulty; A Kernan, C McKeever, Paul Duffy;

K McGeeney, P McGrane; P McKeever, B Mallon, M Mackin; S McDonnell, R Clarke, O McConville FERMANAGH C Breen; P Sherry, B Owens, S Goan; R Johnston, H Brady, S McDermott;

L McBarron, M Murphy; M Little, J Sherry, T Brewster; E Maguire, S Doherty, C O'Reilly