You can tell who they are even before you see them. The Kildare players come clacking down the concrete steps, the sound of their footfalls echoing in the silence of the tunnel. They pass the knot of press people keeping their reddened eyes fixed to the floor. This defeat will take a long time to exorcise.

You can tell who they are even before you see them. Galway players come streaming across the pitch dragging kith and kin and county with them. They come down the steps hooting and hollering and round the corner into the tunnel.

"Whoooooooooooo!"

And they head for the microphones and tapes and tell it the way it was. First into the debriefing session is Derek Savage, the acknowledged sex symbol of Galway, indeed of all Connacht.

"We knew from the beginning it was all about the All-Ireland medal. Different people do it on different days," he says. "We were nervous, but we had done work about getting that nervous tension into something positive out on the pitch, converting it to power. We just exploded in the second half. Ja Fallon was unbelievable. The defence all year has been unbelievable."

There is a man called Bill, who is getting a fair amount of credit just now in the Galway dressingroom. John O'Mahony won't reveal his name and the players just know him as Bill from Glasgow. Anyway, Bill take a bow.

"We just know him as Bill from Glasgow," says Savage. "He's been working with us all year and he deserves the most credit. He's a human resources manager. He speaks to us about getting our full potential out, about our belief in ourselves. He deserves credit for getting it out of us on the day. Every player has benefited."

It's invidious really to choose a man of the match on days like yesterday, when a team stitches together a performance of such uniform excellence that it dwarfs anything they have done before. Ja Fallon did the big profile trick, but the inscrutable Tomas Mannion submitted 70 minutes of good stuff, too.

For a man with a rugby career, an interprovincial hurling career and a reluctance for corner back play behind him, Mannion makes for an interesting subject.

"The funny thing about it is that I don't rate myself as a corner back at all. In Galway they reckon I'm alright, but I think I'm a better wing back, but on this team if you get on you try and make it your own."

As for the team, the bigger picture . . .

"I knew after last year, when we were beaten by Mayo in Tuam, we were close and we saw Mayo going on and they should have beaten Kerry in the final last year. We knew when we got the players back that we missed last year that we were good enough."

Mannion passes on through the mill. Ray Silke arrives. The media reach for fresh tapes. Ray talks fluently and cogently and if space permitted, he'd have a page to himself in most papers after matches.

"It was a bad half-time situation to be in," he says. "We regrouped, got back to what we should have been doing. Funny, I remember as John Divilly kicked the long ball early in the second half, I said `keep it down', then Michael Donnellan cut in and there was only going to be one result after that. The goal turned it.

"We were cool enough," says Silke. "To be fair Kildare were a bit surprised by the ferocity of our second-half performance. Sean O Domhnaill kicked a huge point for instance. I think he's on a roll, he should do the lotto numbers."

Silke's own game reflected that of his team. Period of struggle in the first half, uprising after the break.

"I felt under a fair bit of pressure with Dermot Earley. Christy Byrne fluffed a few kick-outs, but he got them anyway and I thought I should have got them. We were in trouble, but Martin Mac's accuracy from the kick-outs was a big thing. He found me with a short one which brought Niall Buckley out to the wing a bit more in the second half and then Mac was popping them to Kevin Walsh. For me the big difference in the second half was Jarlath Fallon and Kevin Walsh."

As All-Ireland wins go, yesterday's ranks as perhaps the biggest upset since Donegal mugged Dublin six years ago. The similarities were obvious. Galway had almost come into Croke Park under cover of darkness in comparison with Kildare's garish procession to the same destination.

"We were lucky coming into it because Kildare were being blown up by all the papers and bookies," says Martin MacNamara. "There was no pressure on us. We were coming up to do our best and maybe get away with an old win."

Michael Donnellan gave an exhibition of football yesterday which suggested that the gene pool has been generous to him. His two scores in the first half, when he was Galway's best player, kept his team in the game. Like most of the Galway players in the dizzy aftermath he still found time for some quiet reproach. Thirteen months of John O'Mahony's influence has made them stubbornly analytical.

"Och, I made a few mistakes in the first half, they intercepted me when I was taking too much out of the ball. In the second half we just stayed calm and focussed.

"We needed the goal to get us back. It lifted us, we kept at it after that. Our defence was heavily criticised after the games against Mayo and other teams, but look at what they've achieved."

Last words to Niall Finnegan on Galway's transformation after their limp first half performance.

"We had our Viagra at halftime."

Saints and martyrs spun happily in their graves.