Vatican-style, the green and gold smoke had started billowing from the Hill just before the end, after five minutes of additional time had been announced. Habemus Papam!
he fearless Tribesmen had kept the prayers up until the bitter end, handing the Kingdom nothing on a plate, making them fight for it inch by inch, row by row.
Amid stirring renditions of The Fields of Athenry, the Galway fans in the stands had dared to dream. They had shouted the loudest, they had kept the spirits up, they had kept the faith. They could almost smell the bonfires at the crossroads. Galway almost had it in their grasp – they did have it – until Kerry fiercely, desperately, managed to piece together a fairytale ending, morsel by morsel and cling to it.
And so it proved not to be a day for the underdog after all, only a dutiful passing of the crown to those seen by many as the rightful heirs.
Galway might have waited 21 long and hungry years but for Kerry, eight years was a purgatory spent agonising over the bitter sight of their old enemy Dublin ascending the glittering heights of achieving the six-in-a-row.
The return of manager Jack O’Connor to the job for the third time had been expected to lead to greatness, once again – and that prediction came to pass.
He had delivered “a jolt” to the team at half-time, he revealed afterwards. We could only imagine.
Amid the triumphant pyrotechnics and the rain of golden streamers showering down on the Kerry victors at the 50-yard line, Galway manager Pádraic Joyce bent down to console his six-year-old son, Charlie, who was desolate, lifting him up to his chest for a long moment.
The mood on the walk up to Croke Park had been buoyant for the fans.
Much had changed since the last time Galway had lifted the Sam Maguire in 2001. Now even the ‘hats, flags and headbands’ merchants had signs up saying, “Cash or Card.”
Kerry supporter Bridie Fitzgerald, from Fossa, after the match at Croke Park. Photo: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Spotted amongst the crowd were several Galway greats – including Liam Sammon, and John Tobin – as well as the former Mayo manager Stephen Rochford.
But Kerry had their own giants – Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh was in his faithful spot in the press section of the Hogan Stand while the great Kerry team of 1997 were honoured before the match.
And given that it was Pat Spillane’s last outing on The Sunday Game after three decades, he was able to wear his heart on his sleeve, audibly snorting when pundit Seán Cavanagh dared to suggest that Galway “might do it”.
Barely managing to hold back his tears, Spillane spoke about his father, a Kerry selector, who passed away in the 1960s, and who never got to see he and his brothers win All-Ireland medals, let alone his grandsons, Adrian and Killian, who were brought on in the second half for Kerry yesterday.
“My father never saw us play, the three sons,” he said. “They have 19 All-Ireland medals and his two grand-sons today, Killian and Adrian, have two more.
Barely managing to hold back the tears, Pat Spillane spoke about his father, a former Kerry selector who passed away in the 1960s
“He’d have been a proud man to see his family get 21 All-Ireland senior medals. He’d have been a proud man.”
“It’s in our blood,” said Spillane. “It is our religion.”
Those same words were later echoed by Jack O’Connor.
“This means everything to us,” the Kerry manager told RTÉ after the match. “Every man woman and child in Kerry is celebrating this evening. It’s like a religion down there, it’s in our blood. It just means everything.”
With the Bray Air Show under way the same afternoon, the queues had been truly eye-popping going southside at Connolly Station and those Croke Park-bound heaved a sigh of relief to be disembarking on the other side of the track. Enhancing the mood even further, the pre-match entertainment was Sharon Shannon giving a rip-roaring performance to whip up the crowd.
A note in the programme from GAA President Larry McCarthy said Kerry and Galway were both renowned football strongholds “famed for their attractive brand of football”.
But the game proved no showpiece – it was not so much a thing of beauty as a heaving, gyrating and thrilling rollercoaster that had the stomachs of the fans in knots, leaving them scarcely time to breathe.
Galway manager Pádraic Joyce consoles his tearful son Charlie after the All-Ireland final at Croke Park. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
It was transcendental football – the kind of game that grabbed your attention like a mesmerising ‘whodunnit’ and left you a little bit dazed to look up and find yourself amongst a crowd of people.
We should have guessed it would be like that when they played a remix of Declan Nerney’s Stop The World And Let Me Off just before President Michael D Higgins walked onto the red carpet to greet the players and officials.
The first point of the match went to Galway, kickstarting a ferocious tit-for-tat that saw Kerry wind up looking rattled by half-time. Things were not going as expected. These ‘underdogs’ had a ferocious bite as well as a mysterious grasp of physics which saw many a point curve bewilderingly, as well as precisely, over the bar.
Just after 30 minutes, The Fields of Athenry rose up from the Hogan Stand, echoing around Croke Park. The Kerry fans were far too wound up to sing.
But the second half was different. At one point, there was not a single person apart from the goalkeeper down the Kerry end. Every single Kerry player was up the field, trying to score, with every single Galway player up there with them, trying to stop them.
And as a raucous and rollicking An Puc Ar Buile rang out, we had to concede that Kerry had the better song – and deserved to sing it loud and proud.