Paddy O'Rourke believes the bookies are wrong about his Armagh young guns.

The Orchard County - favourites for relegation - took a point from their league opener against Cork last weekend and face a difficult journey to Kerry for the second round, but O'Rourke believes they can maintain their top-flight status:

"It's still a long road," he says in the Independent. "Whatever the bookies want to do is fine, but we intend to be playing Division One football again next year.

"We're going to do everything we can to make sure that happens, and we also intend to build a very solid team for the championship.

"Cork coming here for our first game was a tough one. To get something out of it is good.

"Kerry looked very impressive. If we grow a bit from this one, and I'm sure we will, we'll go down there and enjoy it. We'll take them on.

"This is a very young team - we finished with five U21s in the forward lines and one in the backs, so six U21s finished that game.

"That's a big percentage of young players. Some of those players are only 19 and 20 and sometimes when you have players that young, the occasion can get to them a wee bit. It didn't get to the likes of Ciaran McKeever or Malachy Mackin, who have been around a while.

"That's what playing at this level means - and the only way you can turn them into intercounty players is by playing them." Tweet

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