Respect among peers as deja vu kicks in

Connacht SFC Final: All football is local. In the old-fashioned dressingrooms above McHale Park where countless Galway-Mayo stories have been told, John Donnellan drew Conor Mortimer's attention with a friendly tap on the head and winked his congratulations. Donnellan kicked frees for Galway and Dunmore over seasons past and knows how fickle the lot of the place kicker can be.

He had waited outside the dressingroom to commiserate with his brother Michael, whose last-kick-of-the-match attempt at a draw had fallen short. That miss meant Mortimer's nerveless free, delivered from a tricky angle, will be remembered as one of the most famous conclusions in this deathless west of Ireland rivalry. So it was that one of the most dramatic finishes of this summer boiled down to a passing, sporting acknowledgement between two members of the most famous football families in Galway and Mayo.

The great thing about the youngest Mortimer is he is as downbeat off the field as he is extrovert on it, and he recounted what might yet be the pivotal score of Mayo's season with the cool fatalism that distinguishes all true dead-ball marksmen. The nature of the free, coming after an ambitious and nerve-wracking Mayo counterattack that ended when the Galway full back Finian Hanley was belatedly whistled by Paddy Russell for dragging down Billy Joe Padden, meant all 34,000 people in McHale Park were riveted on the slender, blonde figure from Shrule as he stood over the ball. He reckoned, though, he was confident of his chances.

"I was to a certain degree. I just set it down and I have kicked frees like that here and at the club pitch hundreds of times and they'll usually go over. Two or three times they won't go over and that could have easily happened today. That is the nature of the game. People are on your back when you are missing and on your back when you are scoring so you can't get too emotional."

Watching from the far end of the field, Mayo captain David Heaney found his mind wandering to an old instalment of this annual rivalry.

"Great kick. I was thinking back to 2002 and he had a similar one and he missed that, possibly an easier one, and got a lot of stick for that. So I am delighted for Conor."

A flicker of that particular kick - a nightmarish mistake because it looked so easy from the safety of the stands - did flit across Mortimer's mind as well but it caused no problems. He just stuck to the routine.

"Yeah, well it's nice to beat Galway," he shrugged. "Hasn't happened in a while. I think I owe them one from a couple of years back, my first game in the championship was against them and I missed one that day so it was good to put one over. But that was a very good team performance. We came from behind and it was great to see that determination. Galway are no bad side, they are still about. There is still a lot of big teams in the championship. So it's going to be hard, you know. We're looking to win an All-Ireland."

It was a day of vindication for Mickey Moran. Anybody who saw his fierce embrace of Ronan McGarrity in the tumultuous moments after the final whistle was left in no doubt as to how deeply the Derry man cares for the Mayo players. He was back to his even-tempered self by the time he emerged from the dressingroom half an hour later but this was a big day in a dedicated football career.

"A lot of people questioned us putting out the same team but if we . . . don't have faith in the players we have we shouldn't be here," he repeated.

"It probably wasn't the greatest game in the world but it was tense and competitive. The way the goal came would have killed many a team but this team responded and came back."

He grinned with pleasure at the mention of Mortimer's killer point.

"He does that at training. You will see him with the ball in his hands and he'll be trying them from that angle.

"But once we got that point we should not have let that kick-out get out the field. That should have been nailed. Another day a team would catch you and bury you," he said sombrely before brightening again, remembering that the game ended just minutes ago had ended happily.

"That is one wee lesson we learned. But . . . you can be too hard, can't you?"