Jarlath Burns was in attendance for Monday’s All-Ireland Football Championship Round 3 draw and oversaw some blockbuster ties being made as the championship enters crunch time.

Dublin will host Donegal, Meath will travel to Mayo, Monaghan will host Westmeath, and Armagh will face a long trip to Kerry in what promises to be an entertaining game, to say the least.

Armagh may live to regret their late-game choices and allowing Sam Mulroy to steal automatic qualification to the quarter-finals from their hands.

The Orchard County fans are entitled to feel like they’ve gotten unlucky with an away draw against last year’s winners.

‘Just in case anybody thought this was a fix,’ Jarlath Burns joked about his home county of Armagh’s away draw.

‘The general feeling in Armagh this morning will be, “Burns, you had one job,”‘ he said, laughing.

‘I cannot believe that. Nobody wants to go down and play away to Kerry, though I will say in the National League, Armagh love to be away to Kerry because a lot of people book a weekend away.

‘Look, we did a couple of practice draws, and every single one we were pulling out blockbuster games.’

Burns then shared his thoughts on the new format, saying, ‘It’s interesting that six weeks ago people were saying “I don’t really fully understand this”, now everybody understands it, and now they’re starting to talk about tweaks for next year.

‘The people will always decide whether or not a system works,’ he said.

‘There was always the fear that there would be dead rubbers; there are obviously no dead rubbers in this one. There are 16 fewer games, less condensed, and you can see that crowds are coming out in their thousands to this.’

The final draw of the season will take place early next week at Jarlath Burns’ home club in Silverbridge, with Galway, Louth, Tyrone and Cork all confirmed for the quarter-finals, and will go into the last-eight fixtures with an extra week of rest and preparation under their belts.