Good luck cards landing in the letterbox, supportive messages coming from neighbours, notes sent from friends and family – the All-Ireland final heightens everything.
You notice fresh bunting hanging from lamp-posts and a growing number of flags suddenly flying from houses and businesses, or those smaller ones perched upon car windows. Escaping the build-up can be tricky.
It’s great to know people are supporting you, that they have your back, but if you aren’t accustomed to all the outside noise that accompanies an All-Ireland final, it can be a dangerous distraction.
In particular, I used to notice the increase in cards and letters, because you didn’t necessarily receive as many, if any, for other matches during the season. I found it could become a bit more sentimental than it needed to be. If you read a letter at the wrong time and with the wrong piece of music playing in the background, well, it could be emotional.
You are preparing for the biggest day of your year, going out to do something you have been dreaming about since you were a kid, so naturally enough the preparation for such an event can drain a lot of your energy, if you allow it to do so.
It might only sound like a small thing, and it is, but all those little diversions add up. You need to control the outside noise in the build-up but it’s easier said than done, especially if you are preparing for a first final in a long time.
In that regard, Galway’s 2022 experience gives them an advantage leading up to Sunday. This is new territory for the Armagh players, and while Kieran McGeeney and Kieran Donaghy will have talked through the routine of the day with their squad, experiencing it and imagining it are very different.
Kickouts and goals are going to be key to determining the outcome.
Both teams have talented forwards, but defensively Armagh and Galway have also been hugely impressive in terms of not conceding goals.
Both teams have played 16 games between league and championship this year with each only conceding goals in three matches. For their other 13 fixtures, Galway and Armagh have kept clean sheets.
In terms of the championship, Armagh conceded two goals against Down and one against Kerry. Galway have only conceded one goal – against Armagh.
With such organised and stout defences, goal chances might be few and far between on Sunday – though the throw-ins at the start of each half will provide rare opportunities where teams are man to man.
Michael Murphy netted an early goal for Donegal at the start of the 2012 final and those scores can often set the agenda for the rest of the game.
In the opening minute of the 2020 All-Ireland final against Mayo, I was on the end of a set play we had worked on in training. The play was for James McCarthy to come away with the ball from the throw-in, run through the middle, take a quick one-two, and continue through the heart of the Mayo defence.
I’d peel off to the back post and so force my man to make a choice – either cover me or move towards the centre to try stop James. It worked out for us on that occasion.
You could try dozens of set plays throughout a season and only one might work, but when it comes off in an All-Ireland final, that’s huge.
Eoin Murchan’s goal in the 2019 replay against Kerry was also a set play, though it didn’t exactly go as we had planned. Generally, the Kerry defenders at the time were fully focused on following the man they were marking, so you could try manipulating the situation a bit by going out wide in the hope they would track you, thus creating space down the middle for the runner. It was a kind of rope-a-dope move.
The plan was for Brian Fenton to punch the ball down to Eoin, and off he’d go. However, Brian was blocked from getting up for the ball. But thankfully for us, David Moran’s punch went straight to Eoin, who took off like a rocket.
I’m sure both teams have worked on certain set plays they will hope to use at certain stages of Sunday’s match, but given how close these sides have been in all their recent encounters, you get the feeling a goal would be a momentum-swinging score.
Don’t be surprised if Armagh get Rian O’Neill to drift in towards the full-forward position at times, because that is the kind of fluidity teams need to play with in the modern game.
At the other end of the field, I think we might see a big performance from Damien Comer. He has been carrying an injury for most of the year and wasn’t as influential in either the quarter- or semi-final as Galway might have wanted.
I wonder, though, is that because – even subconsciously – it has been in his head just to get through matches unscathed, so hopefully he’d be further down the road in terms of fitness for the next match?
There is no next game now. He doesn’t have to mind himself, from a mentality point of view that has to be a positive. Comer can go full pelt on Sunday, if he breaks down, he breaks down, it’s all or nothing at this stage.
From my experience over the years, invariably the big players deliver on the big days, and I think Armagh will need to be very wary of Comer exploding to life on Sunday.
The kickouts will also be huge.
Galway surprised me a bit against Donegal by pressing while at the same time going long with a lot of their own kickouts. But it was the right choice because they had a significant height advantage in their half-forward line compared to Donegal’s half-back line.
Kerry didn’t press the Armagh kickout in the semi-final until the latter stages, but when the Kingdom did so, Blaine Hughes was able to find team-mates during that crucial stage of the match.
And this could be the area that shifts the pendulum slightly in Armagh’s favour. I think they have the potential to get more joy from turnovers by pushing up on the Galway kickout, creating goalscoring opportunities for the likes of Conor Turbitt, Oisín Conaty or Andrew Murnin.
I can also see Armagh coming away from the midfield battleground with a decent amount of breaking and contested ball. They are a battle-hardened group, so if Armagh can win a fair share of their own kickouts and take a couple of Galway’s too, that could be the difference in what is likely to be a very tight game.
But Armagh must be careful not to play the occasion or get caught up in the hype of All-Ireland final day. Good luck cards are all well and good, but the only letters that will matter come Sunday evening are the ones engraved on the base of the Sam Maguire.
