Final countdown

Compiled by  SEAN MORANand  GAVIN CUMMISKEY

Far from the madding crowd: Lacey just glad to get away from all the hype

An obvious difference between Donegal and Mayo players on Sunday is experience. Mayo goalkeeper David Clarke, corner back Keith Higgins and Alan Dillon all started against Kerry in the 2006 final, with Barry Moran coming off the bench.

Not that it made much of a difference in the crushing 4-15 to 3-5 defeat inflicted upon them by Kerry. But maybe they will be motivated not to relive the nightmare for a third time in some cases. Dillon featured in the 2004 decider, when Kerry walloped them 1-20 to 2-9, with Michael Conroy coming in at half-time.

For Donegal players 1992 is a distant, albeit warm, memory.

"People have asked me about the All-Ireland win in 1992 and to be honest, I don't remember a whole lot about it," said Donegal's Karl Lacey in his GAA.UlsterBank.comcolumn.

"My granddad Michael Kelly brought me to Croke Park, but I was only eight years old. I was in Donegal Town for the homecoming too, but all I remember is having two Donegal flags painted on my cheeks!

"Granddad is going down to Croker again on Sunday and he'll be one of the first people there."

Lacey also revealed the Donegal panel spent four days split between Carton and Johnstown House last week. "Jim brought us away for a few days at the end of last week and that was really great. It was brilliant just to get out of the county and away from all the hype.

"The excitement is great for the fans and I think they really believe we can do it this year because we've put back-to-back Ulster titles together and we've beaten Kerry and Cork.

"It's great that they are enjoying it, but from a player's perspective it is all going mad and that's why the break we had was ideal."

Poetic moment: Winning makes it 'easy to dream'

Forty four years ago last February this newspaper's parliamentary correspondent John Healy wrote the first instalment of a series entitled "The Shoneen Society" about the changing face of modern Ireland.

He framed it in terms of how the poet Patrick Kavanagh, then recently deceased, might have viewed the migration into Dublin society of so many people from outside of the city.

Taking himself as an example, Healy wrote of how his first visit to the capital was for the 1948 All-Ireland football final between Mayo and Cavan, and how he had slept in an unlocked lorry the night before.

Moving on to the county's next and more successful outing, the Charlestown writer struck a chord that will still resonate with supporters this weekend.

"You wouldn't have to tell the Monaghan man why, two years later with the All-Ireland safely in your pocket in 1950, you are walking down the quays when a passing cloud clears the sun and the yellow evening light Septembers the rusted brick and you can feel in your bones the dignity of an old city which saw so much and absorbed so much in its history: if he was a Mayo man in that particular moment in that yellow evening he would know why: we had beaten the best in Ireland in Croke Park and we were the champions and could accomplish anything now.

"It was easy to dream that evening that you could come swarming in and make this city yours, too, adding to what you had already."