In all of the years that have passed since, you’d do well to come up with a greater sliding doors moment than Armagh and Galway’s last Croke Park meeting in 2001.
The first year of the qualifiers and the first truly heavyweight clash. Galway, champions of 1998 and beaten finalists the year before; Armagh, the two-time Ulster champions who had pushed Kerry all the way to extra-time in a replay the previous summer.
There was drama before the game started with Armagh left stranded out in Na Fianna on the Mobhi Road, waiting for a garda escort that never came and arriving at the ground in a state of panic, according to Oisin McConville in his autobiography, published six years later.
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“I think that day was why the management had to go,” he said of joint bosses Brian Canavan and Brian McAlinden, “as they were making mistakes that were unacceptable.”
Amid fears that they’d miss the throw-in time, they started to get togged out on the bus.
“There was anger, frustration, confusion and shock where there should have been composure, and the more I tried to get the game into my head, the more those four emotions took over,” added McConville.
“We weren’t aware of it on the day,” says former Galway star Declan Meehan now of Armagh’s travails. “At the time it didn’t register with us.”
Armagh were chasing Galway all afternoon and after falling 0-12 to 0-5 behind, launched a remarkable comeback, kicking seven unanswered points to draw level with time almost up.
Their momentum seemed unstoppable as they launched another attack, but Justin McNulty’s delivery was blocked by Michael Donnellan around midfield and Donnellan tore upfield to set sub Paul Clancy up to kick what proved to be the winning point.
Galway’s surprise Connacht semi-final loss to Roscommon was now becoming an increasingly distant memory. They powered through to the All-Ireland final from there and brushed past Meath to claim their most recent title.
It was the third year running that Armagh had been eliminated by the eventual champions though, with Joe Kernan coming on board, they finally scaled that peak themselves in 2002.
You’d wonder how various careers would have played out but for Donnellan’s intervention. Had that Galway team not won a second All-Ireland, their legacy would be rather different now.
Meehan ended the season as Footballer of the Year but he might have been kicking his heels for the rest of the summer instead.
“It was a pivotal moment in the game,” he says. “It was still a draw match but it was still a pivotal moment in the game and some of our careers.
“It’s not easy to turn around the momentum like that and it probably took something special or inspirational from Mikey D just to get the block and turn things around.
“With 20 years’ hindsight, you’d be glad it turned out the way it did but I’d be glad Armagh got to the promised land the year after then.
“We just got one over them and they turned out to be a serious team.”
As they return to Croke Park tomorrow, neither county has quite the same pedigree as 2001, but all sorts of possibilities open up for the winners.
“There’s lads there who kind of have been around a while and they’re very good footballers and they’re looking at Mayo with All Stars and getting to finals year in, year out and they’re kind of going, ‘We’re as good as them and we should be reaching higher’,” says Meehan.
“It could materialise that Galway will show something that we haven’t seen before. That’s what I’m hoping, that we see a different side to Galway that will just get them over the line against Armagh.
“But if they don’t come up for the physical aggression and that side of it from Armagh, which we know they have, that’ll be problematic for Galway but there’s enough of lads there that have been around the block for a while that will, I think, step up to the challenge.
“So I’m hopeful but it’s not much more than 50-50, is it?”
Wouldn’t be the first time.
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