The door to the Galway dressing-down remained closed for the longest time. Maybe they were sitting in silence listening to the delirious whooping of their county folk. Perhaps they were just looking at each other wondering how they had contrived to put this fractured season back together. Most likely they were thinking about the last chapter of what would be a football epic. Galway are back to the All-Ireland final.

Moreover, September will be a month-long festival of GAA in the west. Galway's hurlers got to the All-Ireland hurling final last week with a surprising and courageous win over Kilkenny.

For one player Alan Kerins, who began playing football for Salthill during the winter as a way of keeping fit that means two All-Ireland appearances in the space of three weeks.

"It's been a long enough year," he said yesterday, "but getting to Croke Park twice at the end of it makes it worthwhile. It's something you wouldn't even dream about at the start."

Yesterday in Croke Park in front of 40,060 customers the footballers presented a little microcosm of their season. They played poorly and lethargically for 50 minutes and then finished in a blue streak. Their substitutions worked well, their tactics began to gel, their work-rate went up and scores fell like manna from heaven. Five points down with 17 minutes left they left Croke Park with a three-point margin.

It represents quite a rehabilitation for a team which not only lost last year's All-Ireland final but seemed to have disintegrated entirely earlier this season when they suffered off-the-field damage through injuries and internal feuds and sprung leaks on field when they lost to Roscommon in Connacht.

And Derry? They brought a young side to Croke Park and played, for them, a new style of football. The long, early ball into a pared down full-forward line worked for most of the game and looked indeed to have set them up in the 26th minute when a long ball from Gary Coleman found young Enda Muldoon on the edge of the small square. In old-fashioned full-forward style he caught, turned, shot. Derry had ended a run of four Galway scores and taken the lead again.

Galway, in the John O'Mahony era have seldom looked so sluggish in Croke Park. They declined to hustle for the ball and Derry eager and strong found the prairies in front of the Galway goal unprotected. They will regret the misses they posted. Early in the second half Dermot Dougan had a clear goal chance which he blasted over the bar. A goal would have given Derry a four-point lead. Later Enda Muldoon had the chance to pass for a goal but set himself up for a point. He knocked it wide.

But most critical was their collapse in the final quarter. Galway, with the wisdom that comes from regular big games, had played their substitutions well and were finding some of the old will to live. Derry scored a point from an Anthony Tohill free in the 53th minute, finishing a run of four scores without reply. Then they failed to score again until injury time.

"We came and we played well," said Eamonn Coleman their manager, who due to a suspension watched the game from the stands. "No matter what was said or wrote we played well but a team that doesn't score for the last quarter of a game will win nothing."

So it proved. Derek Savage began winning a lot of useful ball in the forward line. The surprising eclipse of Anthony Tohill was complete as Kevin Walsh and Michael Donnellan began making runs deep into Derry territory.

Galway strung together four points before delivering the knock-out punch, Savage passing to substitute Matthew Clancy, who drove home a fine shot.

O'Mahony said: "In today's game an awful lot of things did go wrong. We were pulled for over-carrying nine or 10 times and we gave away bad ball, and all kinds of things.

"In the end the whole squad lifted the game from a situation where they were playing poorly and that's the best tribute I can pay to the team. It's not teams that win All-Ireland's, it is the squads."

Experience probably did win out the day, and few men were more experienced on the field than midfielder Kevin Walsh. The old legs take a while longer to spring out of the dressing-room, and he is left with the final words.

Galway must await the outcome of next weekend's other semi-final between Kerry and Meath. A Kerry win will provide them with the opportunity to avenge their defeat to the same opposition in last years final. Their hopes of doing so are bolstered by the improved medical prognosis for injury victims Jarlath Fallon (who started yesterday) and Paul Clancy (who came on as a substitute).

"Getting back to Croke Park and winning an All-Ireland final is what it is all about," said man-of-the-match Derek Savage afterwards. "For a few years since 1998 we've been bridesmaids but going through what we've been through this year will make us determined. We've gone back to basics with our football and four weeks will bring the lads who have had injuries on a lot."

Elsewhere the weekend was quiet. On Saturday the GAA's Central Council opted to shunt the hurling and football fixture lists into a calender-year format. Thus the National Football League will crank up next February and the hurling league will open for business at the end of that month.

On the field of play on Saturday the under-21 hurlers of Wexford and Limerick advanced to the All-Ireland under-21 final.