Armagh back Aidan O'Rourke has acknowledged that he couldn't have envisaged his second coming at intercounty level a year ago.
O'Rourke was omitted from the Armagh squad during Joe Kernan's final season in charge and the Dromintee man's intercounty career appeared to be over.
"I had thought those days were behind me," O'Rourke told the BBC ahead of the 20 July Ulster final against Fermanagh.
"It makes me appreciate Sunday week (the Ulster final) all the more maybe."
Back in the autumn, new manager Peter McDonnell made it abundantly clear that he wanted the 31-year-old back in the panel.
"Peter's a sneaky enough operator," smiles O'Rourke.
"I was coaching Queen's at the time and he mixed in a challenge game we were trying to arrange. Between a lot of messing about, he eventually twisted my arm."
"Peter is a very thoughtful and very reserved man and he doesn't do anything by chance"
After having been away from the intercounty scene for over a year, O'Rourke says he found the going tough in the early stages of his return before his game picked up in the spring.
"Especially with county football, you can lose touch very quickly.
"My fitness wouldn't have been great all through the McKenna Cup when I felt I struggled.
"You don't really enjoy it until you are comfortable or you feel you can compete but as the league wore on, I felt more comfortable in the county environment (again)."
O'Rourke is careful to pay tribute to the regimes of his previous county bosses, the two Brians (McAlinden and Canavan) and Joe Kernan, but it's no great surprise that he is particularly fulsome in his praise for McDonnell's current regime.
"The training that we're doing...it's like nothing I've ever seen.
"It's well thought out, well prepared and you are tested every night.
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"Peter is a very thoughtful and very reserved man and he doesn't do anything by chance. Preparation is very meticulous in every aspect of the game.
"And (McDonnell's backroom men) Benny O'Kane and Denis Holywood are cutting edge. Anything new that comes on line, those guys know about it straight away."
Inevitably, O'Rourke is highly complimentary about his team's Ulster final opponents and Peter McDonnell's attention to detail means that the Armagh squad will learn a lot more about the Erne men over the 10 days.
Similarly, the Fermanagh players will be informed about Armagh's strengths and weaknesses over the coming days but the element of surprise has never been what the Orchard machine is about.
"Maybe Armagh's strengths haven't changed all that much. It's a case of tweaking rather than a radical overhaul," agrees O'Rourke.
However as many of Armagh opponents have learned over the last decade, knowing the workings of the Orchard County method is not necessarily a guarantee that it can be stopped.
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