The aftermath: it was, says John O'Mahony, "the one part of the thing that was unplanned". For Galway's meticulous manager, the preparation for a Connacht championship he had already won on three previous occasions and the lead-up to an All-Ireland final which he had experienced once previously were if not easy, at least familiar.

Even sending a team out to win football's biggest prize wasn't too alien a business, but the rest of it was. For the first time in 32 years, the Sam Maguire crossed the Shannon and crowned Galway champions. The one thing he hadn't prepared for was the reaction.

"There are bits of last year still left," he says. "But the immediate record of All-Ireland champions this decade isn't great. What we were doing up to September was trying to develop success. Now we're trying to deal with it."

Maybe it's easier now to play down the process by which Galway came to have something to celebrate but 15 months ago when O'Mahony took over the county's senior footballers, there was nothing inevitable about it all.

It was all about improving self-esteem rather than reining-in the ambitions of others. "One of the big challenges at the moment is that everyone wants to get the All-Ireland champions. Armagh and Donegal both came here in the League with all guns blazing. Sides are out to get us."

In August of last year, O'Mahony came to the job under no illusions about the task facing him. Whereas many other counties might have been grateful to recruit someone of his eminence, Galway with its long - albeit recently barren - history of self-sufficiency was uncertain.

O'Mahony's predecessor Val Daly had done a good job of bringing a predominantly young team to the verge of a good result against the All-Ireland finalists of 1996 and '97. The summary fashion of his disposal by the county board, despite the ambiguity of personality clashes that had nothing to do with Daly, caused resentment amongst many in Galway.

"I said all along," says O'Mahony, "that I respected Val and the players' loyalty to him. Everyone has a credit to take: schools' coaches, former trainers, under-age mentors. Because someone is there at the end of the road doesn't mean that other valuable contributions haven't been made along the way.

"I saw myself asked to do a job and set about doing positive things. I would never have seen myself as being a figure in that controversy. When I was approved for the job by a margin of about 30-16, I realised that I wasn't going into a totally straightforward situation."

All those months ago, it's not too hard to see what attracted O'Mahony to the job. His reputation was founded on making the best of hard cases. Bringing his native Mayo to an All-Ireland for the first time in nearly 40 years. Leading Leitrim to a epochal Connacht title in 1994.

Yet Galway, with its deeper resources of quality football, represented an opportunity to bridge the generation gap to 1966 when the All-Ireland last went west.

"I was genuinely excited by the talent at my disposal and concerned to knock it all together and get consistency. I was aware of their record in recent times."

Part of the task was to develop younger talent but part was to revitalise more experienced players. "Getting people like Kevin Walsh, Jarlath Fallon and Tomas Mannion back again was important," says O'Mahony.

"With the exception of Tomas Mannion, none had been part of the League. The management did everything possible to get everyone on board.

"Niall Finnegan hadn't been part of the League from the beginning, but the Louth match (NFL, end of 1997) was a turning point. We were a bit short and I asked him in for a few sessions and he came in for a bit of the match. Everyone was willing to put their shoulders to the wheel. People were putting the team first."

After the success of his stints with Mayo and Leitrim, O'Mahony knew the pitfalls of taking over Galway. Unlike the other counties, this was a panel with genuine possibilities. Still there would be muttering about his nomadic sequence of duties within Connacht.

"This was my third county within Connacht and I was aware of what people were saying. It was a big challenge in that sense. The county would be seen as having potential. There were bigger things than Connacht titles expected in Galway. From a personal point of view, I now felt that I had a team capable of winning an All-Ireland."

That feeling was important to O'Mahony. Whereas his success in bringing Connacht teams further than had been expected was wellknown, reservations remained about his capacity to take a team all the way. Did such reservations enter his own head?

"Let's say that I was aware that people might think that. What did I need this for? This was a risk because I could have ended up with a major question mark over my abilities. But I was excited by the possibilities."

Does this mean, even in retrospect, that he never had the same confidence in the Mayo team of 1989 or the Leitrim side of five years later? He is quick to defuse the potential slight to his former teams.

"No, no. I wouldn't see it like that. I'm disappointed particularly that I didn't knock it out of Mayo. It was a huge disappointment. I was only remembering it the other day. In both All-Irelands we got a goal early in the second half, but this year we added the few points. I'd love to play '89 again and so would the players.

"I think Leitrim - and this may make people laugh - could have got to the All-Ireland final in '95 had they got out of Connacht. I wouldn't disparage the ambitions I had for other teams."

Mayo was the county at the heart of all these ambiguities: the county O'Mahony played for at all levels and which he led to an All-Ireland under-21 and nearly a senior. When Leitrim took Connacht for the first time in 67 years, it was Mayo they beat in the final.

Last May, was O'Mahony fully conscious of the setback he had inflicted on football in his own county? And might he consider some form of atonement?

"I was conscious that we might have been bringing Mayo's ambitions to a halt - for the present anyway. But I saw it more as developing Galway and getting the maximum out of the team I was with.

"As regards going back I don't know. It's speculative, although you should never say never. Speaking from where I am, though, I'd say this is my last job but I'll jump hurdles when I come to them."