Joe might have coached his last game. Oisin, McGeeney and McGrane and Enda might retire; at least two of them will. But what really depresses is the realisation that something bigger than them is gone. The Aura of Armagh.

Clones last Sunday was like Ballybofey in May . . . the better team lost. Armagh would never have lost those games a few years ago. In the closing minutes, their experience, reputation, aura, would have unnerved opponents. But those two defeats this year were like bounced cheques.

The credibility was gone, there was nothing there.

For me the turning point was when Joe took off Geezer near the end of the 2005 All Ireland semi-final. Armagh were never the same after that. Up to then, the last 10 minutes was Armagh's, and when Joe took off McGeeney, it was as if he was saying even without McGeeney we still can't be beaten. But McGeeney personified that aura, and when he was taken off, that aura was diluted. Joe sent out the message that McGeeney was just another player, and in doing so, Armagh became just another team.

There's more to it than that, of course. The killer instinct wasn't there because the scoring potency wasn't there. Paddy McKeever hasn't been a scorer in years.

Martin O'Rourke has never been one. Stephen Kernan is a year or two from being the finished article. Diarmuid Marsden was a scorer in a previous lifetime while Oisin can't get away from men the way he once did. And the loss of Ronan Clarke was incalculable. Before, Armagh could always rely on Clarke to open one door and Francie to close the other.

Armagh still had options. I don't know how Peader Toal was behaving in training but he's a scorer, yet he didn't get any playing time last Sunday.

Charlie Vernon is another who might give the wrong ball but he can also go on a solo run and kick a point.

Instead they brought on Paul Keenan who is tall and promising but isn't robust enough yet for a game like last Sunday.

And we still persisted with the high diagonal ball when we didn't have the men inside to receive it and didn't seem to have the men outside to give it. You don't fit players into a game plan, you fit the game plan around your players. If we were to persist with the high ball, then I'd like to have seen Philip Loughran on the edge of the square.

Even then we'd have gone only so far. The balance of the team was wrong. We had too many guys in their 30s and their early 20s and not enough guys in their mid-tolate 20s in the Stevie McDonnell age bracket. Before, Joe could call on mature, quality subs. This year there were no McEntees to call on.

McGeeney and McGrane are still good enough to carry on but the question is whether Armagh are good enough for them to carry on.

They should now be able to just do their bit, like Paul Flynn, say, can with Waterford, or Moynihan could in his final years with Kerry, but instead they've gone from being part of a great team to having to carry one. At their age, do they need that?

Joe might decide he doesn't need it either, but Armagh still needs Joe. There's no readymade replacement, and if Joe goes, so does a lot of the fundraising and the professional services he brought.

Whatever happens, it should be Joe's call. What he and these players did for this county and this game can never be played down. Some managers do things right; Joe did the right things. They might have won only one All Ireland but in doing so they set the standard for every All Ireland that came after it.

Tyrone wouldn't be who they are if it wasn't for Armagh.

The Cork hurlers wouldn't have had their set-up either.

The aura is gone but the legacy and memories will live on forever.

John Morrison is a native of Armagh and coached the county in the '80s and '90s before coaching against it with Donegal and Derry