All-Ireland final day in 1983 was flush with winter, making the footage of the match seem all the more foreboding. It has almost become an allegory for football's darkest hour, seething with mean spiritedness and ugliness, a sometimes sickening spectacle which gave rise to crowd baying rather than any real cheer.

What happened appalled the higher powers within the GAA and there was talk of inquiries and a residue of mutual ill-will which took many seasons to settle. But at the core, there were winners and losers and this newspaper, despite noting disdain for the festering pettiness, observed that the game pattern had been underlined by a remarkable show of moral courage by the 12 Dublin players still left on the field.

Galway, the champions' opponents, went back to the west feeling they had been given an alleyway mugging, but when they looked inside themselves, they knew they had played miserably.

"I think that a lot of Galway's subsequent failures were blamed on the 1983 final. There was a feeling that we'd left an All-Ireland behind and because of that, there was always this sense of playing in the shadow of the great Galway teams from the decades before," says Stephen Joyce.

The former Clonbur attacker played corner forward for the county that September, poaching a goal and striking a single free. His play was one of the better aspects of Galway's performance.

In the stands that day in 1983 was Pete Warren, an integral cog in the Tuam Stars set-up and an inter-county player with Galway in the late 1980s. He had sat on the bench on Connacht final day in 1990, when Galway fell to a Roscommon team brimming with new optimism. Even then, it seemed that Galway's brittle will could be traced back to that gloomy afternoon in the early 1980s.

It is not unlikely that both men thought hazily of that mostly forgotten Dublin match as the fireworks rang across Croke Park last September. Both stood on the line alongside John O'Mahony as selectors and Galway stalwarts and both were acutely conscious of the impact the barren years had had on the psyche of successive county football teams.

"Watching the boys win against Kildare was a incredible thing for me," offers Joyce. "I mean, nothing ever compares to playing and naturally a part of me wondered what it would have been like if we'd gone that step further in the early 1980s, but when you work with a bunch of terrific lads, it is a very special thing to see them succeed like that. As well as that, it rid us of the past," offers Joyce.

Warren viewed proceedings from a slightly more starry perspective.

"I had watched so many AllIrelands before going back to Galway in 1983 and of course every Gaelic footballer wonders what it would be like. So to be there at the heart of it, under the stand and behind the scenes before the match was sort of the realisation of a dream, " he says.

Both men profess unreserved admiration for O'Mahony and agree that it is continually both a joy and learning experience to watch him work. For the manager, the choice of both men was fairly easy to make.

"I would have known both the lads, but not very well. It was important for me to pick people who had their finger on the pulse of the game within the county. Stephen had had a long, fine career with Galway and was still involved and Pete had also played with Galway and had managed Tuam to a Connacht championship in 1995. And they were from the opposite ends of the county, so it seemed like a good blend."

Warren and Joyce both claim to have been surprised when O'Mahony called upon them and though they both reserved a little time to consider the demands involved, they knew at heart that it was an opportunity not to be spurned.

Selectors hold a curious place on the status pyramid. O'Mahony, through no intention, has been one of those who pioneered the cult of the young manager and his presence inevitably gives the county a certain profile. But all successful managers invariably select a shrewd backroom team, lads who break the loneliness that comes with decision-making. O'Mahony proved predictably astute once he arrived in Galway.

"Of course they are vital to this. As well as selecting a team, they help out in tactical terms, take care of hundreds of unseen things and are there for the boys to talk to. My job would be extremely difficult if Stephen and Pete weren't involved as they are," he says.

Last summer was one kissed with fate and skill for the Galway management team. Hell, they even had the foresight to allow Pat Comer to set the finest moments on celluloid for his award-winning documentary A Year Til Sunday.

Tomorrow, though, there'll be no camera nor any element of the unknown. All the emotions of the previous year have been closeted for a time. It's all about graft now.

"We are up there to be knocked and Sligo will be the first to put it up to us," says Joyce.

"We are at the beginning again now."