AUTUMN goes into limbo. Leaves remain on their trees. Small animals postpone hibernation. The evenings refuse to shorten. The destination of this year's All Ireland football championship remains undecided for another fortnight.
For a while at Croke Park yesterday, we dithered on the threshold of history. With 10 minutes left, Mayo led Meath by four points. Connacht, the only boat not lifted by the GAA's recent rising tide, prepared to set sail. Thirty years since a western football win. Forty five years since Mayo last polished any silver.
The minutes slipped by. Three points ahead and Mayo were losing shape. Two points ahead and Mayo were losing confidence. One point ahead and Mayo were losing their faith. Level and the final whistle was greeted like a hangman's reprieve.
Imagine it. Ten minutes left and four points ahead. It is decades since Mayo football has felt the press of such possibility. The flags fluttered. In the heart of the Hogan Stand, Uachtarain na hEireann interrupted her attempts to get a Mexican wave going to lean forward and thumb her Mayo nose at An Taoiseach's glum Meath countenance. "Not such an optimist now, Johnny boy."
If the game only occasionally rose above the thud and blunder standard which has characterised this year's championship, nobody could have asked for a more novel equalising score. As the game drew its last gasp, a long punt from Colm Coyle, the Meath half back, dropped in front of the Mayo goal.
Mesmerised, the entire ground watched as the ball hopped unmolested over the Mayo crossbar. Within seconds the final whistle was shrilling. 65,898 faces turned in dumbfounded silence towards the road home.
Both sets of supporters had reeds of consolation to grasp as they left Dublin. Mayo's last couple of big days out in Croke Park have ended in abject humiliation and internal recriminations. Yesterday they almost got back to their tradition of seizing the day.
For Meath, there was some satisfaction in having hewn a reprieve out of such unpromising landscape. Satisfaction not just with the opportunity of another chance but with the knowledge that this year's crop of players has inherited the right bloodlines.
For a decade, Meath have been scraping draws and wins out of these unpromising backs to the wall situations. Only in Meath is the famous last frame of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid regarded as an upbeat ending paving the way for a sequel.
"Ah well," said Sean Boylan, the twinkling herbalist from Dunboyne who manages the Meath team, "I suppose you'd have to say that we got out of jail today.
"We'd have been disappointed to lose here today," said Mayo manager John Maughan, somewhat less sanguinely, "but we'll regroup. We were disappointed initially. We had the winning of it. We've had a few minutes to think about it all. We'll be back here in two weeks, ready to go."
Yesterday's draw was the first in any All Ireland senior final since Meath were involved in a replayed game with Cork in 1988. The result provides a timely end of season windfall for the GAA who will expect to fill Croke Park for the third time this month when the match is replayed in a fortnight.
On terra firma, meanwhile, both teams meet for what will be a subdued post All Ireland lunch this afternoon in Dublin before shaking hands and wishing each other a fond au revoir. Hostilities resume at the same venue on Sept 29th.