In a sense the All-Ireland football championship reaches another watershed this weekend. Not in terms of attendance or potential income, but because never have so many teams been talked about as contenders a week into August - especially those already beaten.
Between the two remaining qualifiers and the opening two quarter-finals, six of the teams in action this weekend were beaten during their provincial run. With the possible exception of Monaghan, they all believe they can still have a say at the business end of the 2005 All-Ireland race.
That's not because it's a soft championship, or the provincial victories were all flukes, but because all the beaten teams have been down this road many times before. Derry, Laois, Mayo, Cork and, most of all, Tyrone have had enough lessons in the qualifiers to know that second chances don't need to be any less valuable than the first. It doesn't matter which chance you take, as long as you take it.
Galway remain the only team to come off qualifier avenue and win the All-Ireland, their 2001 success coming in the first year of the new back-door format.
Kerry came close a year later, as did Armagh in 2003, but the feeling now is that the back-door route is getting less and less perilous every year. If teams get their mental approach right, then physically the beaten teams should be no worse off in their quest for All-Ireland success.
"I can see it happening a lot more," says John O'Mahony, the Galway manager for seven years from 1998 to 2004.
"Especially as the culture of losing changes, and the qualifiers are better structured. And we do have some quality teams coming through this year. Whether it happens again this year I don't know. It's still a little more difficult because you have to get over the mental setback of losing, but you can actually come out stronger depending on how teams react."
O'Mahony's experience with defeat in 2001 was particularly traumatic in that he wasn't immediately aware of the consequences. Having eased past Leitrim in the first round, he wasn't overly concerned about the visit of Roscommon to the heartland of Galway football. Yet they were ambushed - and O'Mahony initially thought it was fatal.
"I just remember going into the dressing-room not even being sure if we had another chance. I was thinking it was only the first-round losers that got a second chance. The football chairman, Pat Egan, told me we were still in, but even with that I wasn't sure if I wanted another chance. The first thing I decided to do was give the players a week off.
"The culture of losing back then was totally different. It felt like the end of the road for the year. Suddenly we were dealing with a totally new psychological situation. It's a very delicate time, and we've seen that over the last few years. We've seen teams just collapse, especially if they were back in action a week later. We were very lucky the way it bounced for us, especially getting the three weeks before our next match.
"So I just told the players I wouldn't be contacting them until the following week. I knew they'd have to go through this whole process themselves. I just said anyone interested in turning it around be back on the Tuesday week. And everyone to a man was there, and ready to go. That was the initial sign for me anyway that our season wasn't finished yet."
The psychology of winning and losing is of particular interest to Brendan Hackett. Though primarily known as a sports psychologist, he's also had considerable experience in Gaelic football - managing the Offaly team back in 1991, the year before he was coach to the Irish International Rules team.
More recently he's worked with the backroom team of Roscommon (2001), Sligo (2002), Fermanagh (2003) and Limerick (2004), who together have endured the full range of experiences in handling the qualifiers - the good, the bad, and the ugly.
"My definition of psychology is the study of human behaviour," says Hackett, "and the processes that underlie it. So all managers have to use psychology, because what they're doing is literally studying the behaviour of the players, and the processes going through their heads.
"So I believe that the psychological preparation is definitely the most important thing now for the teams that have been defeated. I just think the physical preparation has gone much further ahead in the last couple of years than the psychological preparation has. I think they need to keep pace from now on."
Hackett's most recent experience was last year with the Limerick footballers. Having come so close to beating Kerry on two occasions, they were then sent out a week later to play Derry - and to no one's surprise they lost. In fact Limerick's body language after losing to Kerry said it all. They'd missed the boat, blown their chance, and it was like they were beaten before the ball was thrown in against Derry.
Yet Hackett believes that even that heavy combination of mental and physical burden shouldn't prevent a team from delivering on their ultimate potential. And especially not the physical burden.
As Offaly manager in 1991 he came up against a Meath team that had played seven Sundays in succession - four times against Dublin, and twice against Wicklow. Yet they beat Offaly and went all the way to the All-Ireland final.
"I did learn in a practical way that physically teams can definitely keep going, because Meath played will all their passion and fire against Offaly that year. So I don't buy into this idea of being tired, because physically there's no reason why players shouldn't be able to go out eight Sundays in a row.
"But the mindset of losing is still a big challenge to Gaelic Games. It's only now that some teams are able to adjust that mindset, and realise the thing isn't over yet. And that teams can bounce back. That's when the role of the manager really becomes important.
"To actually organise things around that, and handle the disappointment, is essentially good management. I think the good managers can do that. They don't need to get inside the players' heads, only their bodies."
O'MAHONY FOUND himself readjusting his own mindset after the defeat to Roscommon in 2001. Without the positive mindset of some of his players he's not so sure that Galway would have got their All-Ireland campaign back on course.
"All it really takes is for a few of the leaders on the team to say they're going to turn it around. Thankfully the leadership and character in our team that year did that. Then I think the day when we squeezed past Armagh was when I first had visions of the Sam Maguire in front of me.
"After beating Roscommon that vision was becoming more and more realistic." Still, Galway went into the All-Ireland final as underdogs, not just because of their back-door route, but because Meath had hammered the reigning All-Ireland champions, Kerry, in the other semi-final.
"We saw that as another opportunity," recalls O'Mahony, "because it is an advantage to be written off for a final like that. We capitalised on that by just focusing entirely on our own game. We trained the Sunday morning before and I wasn't even planning on picking the team then, but as I went around the players I just realised all the players wanted the particular jobs we were going to give them, so we ended up releasing the team that evening. I knew then we were going to give it an almighty rattle.
"When we won the thing there was this huge sense of satisfaction, probably more so than 1998. I just think that the satisfaction was even greater than if we'd come straight through the front door. Definitely.
"We'd beaten the team that had beaten us as well, so there were no debts left unpaid. We'd confirmed we were the best team in the country."
Hackett has found himself tied up in similar situations, and isolates his experience with Fermanagh in 2003 as an example of how teams can and should handle the disappointment of losing.
"Some managers try the reverse psychology, at least with the media, but I think all that backfires. You can't say one thing in a newspaper and then think you're saying something different in a dressing-room. Even if you're only talking about outside the team, you sow a seed. And when you're dealing with a panel of 30 players that seed takes wings in some people's minds. And that's the danger.
"I remember Fermanagh were hammered by Tyrone in the league semi-final that year. By chance they flew out to the Canaries that night, and the first thing they did on the Monday morning was to thrash out the Croke Park thing.
"They were gutted, totally embarrassed, but if you handle stuff like that in a healthy way, and just talk about it, the feelings can move on in a healthy way.
"And I remember Kevin Heffernan did the same when Dublin lost the 1975 final. The morning after that he had them out in Clontarf golf club, just dealing with it, and getting ready to move forward. But typically teams don't talk after a defeat like that. A lot of them just go off and get pissed. That's still the Irish way of handling disappointment."
CONNACHT CHAMPIONSHIP FIRST ROUND (May 20th, Tuam ) Galway 3-24 Leitrim 3-5
Having lost the league final to Mayo by just a point a few weeks earlier, this result eased the mind of most of the Galway supporters. Pádraic Joyce was on fire, scoring 3-3, with a further 10 Galway players getting their name on the scoreboard - including dual player Alan Kerins.
Yet much of the talk surrounded the non-appearance of the Donnellan brothers Michael and John. The word was Michael had withdrawn from the panel after John had failed to get a place in the starting line-up. That controversy passed later in the week when both returned to training, and Galway appeared well on course to beat Roscommon in the semi-final a fortnight later.
CONNACHT CHAMPIONSHIP SEMI-FINAL (June 3rd Tuam)
Roscommon 2-12 Galway 0-14
A typical championship ambush saw Roscommon score two first-half goals through Nigel Dineen and Frankie Dolan, with midfielder Séamus O'Neill providing the final inspiration to give the visitors a deserved win.
"Of course I'd planned to win," recalls then manager John O'Mahony. "I even had schedules to give out for the following Wednesday's training, assuming we were going to win. So I had to keep them in the file, and basically make the whole thing up off the cuff for the next couple of weeks. Between that and losing the league final, winning an All-Ireland at the end of the year was the farthest thing from my mind in the dressing-room."
ALL-IRELAND QUALIFIER ROUND TWO (June 30th, Aughrim)
Galway 3-12 Wicklow 1-9
Although they had three weeks to recover, Galway's fortunes were still up in the air. Paul Clancy and Derek Savage were injured and O'Mahony also introduced goalkeeper Alan Keane and corner back Kieran Fitzgerald, while switching Tomás Mannion to centre back. All those moves would prove telling.
"I remember going down to Wicklow feeling very vulnerable," recalls O'Mahony. "We won easily enough in the end. We got a bit of a cushion at half time and played a bit of decent football. We could have objected to going to Aughrim because of the limited capacity, but we didn't want to make it any more awkward. It was a wonderful occasion for them and us."
ALL-IRELAND QUALIFIER ROUND THREE (July 7th, Croke Park)
Galway 0-13 Armagh 0-12
Still worried about the injury problems, and with only a week to prepare, O'Mahony was concerned about bringing his team to Croke Park to face Armagh, by whom - as coincidence would have it - they'd been well beaten in a challenge game before the Wicklow game in Aughrim.
"A good friend just told me win this one and you're back as serious contenders. And that was true. The boost of beating Armagh by a point was just massive."
Yet it was desperately close, with the final result all hinging on a late block down by Michael Donnellan, and then the winning point from Paul Clancy.
ALL-IRELAND QUALIFIER ROUND FOUR (July 22nd, Croke Park)
Galway 1-14 Cork 1-10
Another trip to Croke Park saw Galway regain most of their old composure. They eased into a first half lead with Pádraic Joyce and Ja Fallon in fine form. Although Cork did fight back bravely, Galway always had enough in reserve.
"I felt than that Galway were back in the spotlight," says O'Mahony. "The rehabilitation was slow, but steady. I still felt we were getting our rhythm back, and also getting injured players back. And all that gave us our confidence back."
ALL-IRELAND QUARTER-FINAL (August 4th, McHale Park)
Galway 0-14 Roscommon 1-5
In a cruel twist a fate, Roscommon drew Galway in the very next match after winning the Connacht title. Mentally they couldn't handle it, scoring just a single point in the first half through defender Francie Grehan, and allowing Galway emerge as convincing winners.
"It probably was a little bit hard on Roscommon," admits O'Mahony. "At the time the GAA were still having the so-called live draw, which was actually made at six even though it went out on The Sunday Game. We were on the train home after the Cork match, and I got a call saying we'd got Roscommon.
"I just walked up to my selectors Stephen Joyce and Peter Warren and said we'll have no trouble motivating the players for this one. I knew the frame of mind would be totally different from the Connacht semi-final, and so it turned out."
ALL-IRELAND SEMI-FINAL (August 26th, Croke Park)
Galway 1-14 Derry 1-11
Having played so well against Roscommon, Galway almost blew it at the penultimate hurdle. With Anthony Tohill leading the way, Derry were 1-10 to 0-8 ahead on 53 minutes.
Galway's final rally though was superb, with Derek Savage and Seán Óg de Paor scoring vital points and Matthew Clancy grabbing the winning goal.
"Maybe the fact that it had gone so well against Roscommon we felt it would be easy," says O'Mahony. "It was a rough game, and we ended up playing poorly enough. I remember Derry got a free, we intercepted it, and in the last 12 minutes got 1-4."
FINAL (Sept 23rd, Croke Park)
Galway 0-17 Meath 0-8
Meath were strong favourites on the back of their semi-final win over Kerry, and though they were level at 0-6 apiece at half-time, Galway ran riot in the second half, Pádraic Joyce ending up with 0-10.
"Our first half wasn't that impressive," recalls O'Mahony, "but we did go to town in the second half. It all just came together, and because of the route we'd gone down I think the character we'd built was crucial. That was our strength in the end."
