Referee Eugene Murtagh (Longford) Happy the team that's comfortable in its own skin.

Plenty of the sides in the qualifier draw spent the hiatus since their provincial championship defeat dreaming themselves up anew.

Not Armagh. Six weeks off and back they come with precisely the same 15 that started against Donegal, like Roger Federer ambling back onto Centre Court in his natty blazer while all those around him tip six days of rainwater out of their shoes.

(Wow. Just compared Armagh footballers to Roger Federer. You don't see that every day. ) Point is, maybe the only prospect more daunting for Derry here than an Armagh team that's had six weeks to prepare is an Armagh team that's had six weeks to prepare and has come to the conclusion that they were right first time around.

Still, Ulster being Ulster, it won't spook Paddy Crozier's side as much as it might a team from down the country. What will worry Crozier, though, is how exactly to squeeze a performance out of a squad that hasn't looked especially interested or engaged in either of their matches so far.

Nobody who was at Casement Park a fortnight ago came to any conclusion other than Derry were blessed not to ship a proper beating against Monaghan. Add that to a just-did-enough afternoon against Antrim and a winter and spring of varying hues of discord and you're left floundering as to reasons to classify them as at the races today at all.

There are some, of course. Two years ago, despite Armagh doing a tip-top job of starving Paddy Bradley of ball and space and any sort of peace, Derry still would have beaten them had Enda Muldoon (right) packed his freetaking boots. Francis McEldowney has come back into the side for today and will relish the bit of blood and thunder with Paddy McKeever. Kevin McCloy, meanwhile, will feel much more at home keeping tabs on Diarmaid Marsden than he did with the spry Monaghan full-forward line fizzing around him in Casement.

Still, for all that Marsden and McKeever will add to the Armagh effort, the winning of the game is in the hands of your McGeeneys, your Kernans, your McGranes, McConvilles and McDonnells.

Derry might have answers for some of them but they don't have answers for all. Armagh might not last the summer without Francie Bellew, Ronan Clarke and Brian Mallon but they have enough about them to see out today.

Verdict Armagh by three ARMAGH P Hearty; E McNulty, B Donaghy, A Mallon; A Kernan, K McGeeney, C McKeever; P McGrane, K Toner; P McKeever, S Kernan, M O'Rourke; S McDonnell, D Marsden, O McConville DERRY S O'Kane; M McGoldrick, K McCloy, G O'Kane; L Hinphey, SM Lockhart, F McEldowney; F Doherty, J Conway; J Diver, C Gilligan, M Lynch; C Devlin, P Bradley, E Muldoon