Into September and the final lap of a compelling GAA season: hurling's first All-Ireland final between two counties from the one province is already guaranteed at least a footnote in history and concludes a stirring summer's action, but one which hasn't thrust any new force onto the national stage.

Football has been different and the achievement of both Cavan and Offaly in reclaiming provincial titles went hand-in-hand with high-quality football in the Ulster and Leinster finals. At the end of the day, however, this month's final will be between two experienced sides with a year's All-Ireland experience behind them.

It was wrongly stated in yesterday's (alright - my) match report that Kerry and Mayo hadn't met before in an All-Ireland final. Sixty-five years ago, the counties were involved in the final that marked Kerry's fourth consecutive title.

Times are changed and although Kerry have managed a more recent four-in-a-row, the current team is the most dislocated to take the field in an All-Ireland final since the county started winning titles back in 1903. In that time, 11 years is the longest gap endured by Kerry between winning All-Irelands. The team that starts the final will not have a single All-Ireland medal between them.

As an historical aside, it can be pointed out that 1932 was not actually the first time Mayo and Kerry had won All-Ireland semi-finals.

Seven years previously, in what was to be the last example of the often spectacular administrative ineptitude that dogged the GAA during its initial 50 years, the championship failed to take place for the first and only time since the American Invasion of 1888 - so called because of the numbers of athletes from Ireland who went on a fund-raising tour of the US.

After 1925, All-Ireland championships were completed within the calendar year - an apparently unremarkable feat, but one that had proved beyond the association during the Civil War and War of Independence.

It was also the last time that the verdict of the playing field was overruled by that of the committee room. During the year in question, the championship was submerged into chaos by a series of technical objections to teams that had reached the semi-finals.

Those matches had been won by Mayo and Kerry, against Wexford and Cavan respectively. Objections caused the expulsion of Kerry and Cavan, leaving Mayo as the only team still standing - and presumably, you might think, All-Ireland champions.

Mayo's position, however, was not as clearcut as it appears. They had been nominated by Connacht to contest the national semi-finals, largely because of a provincial championship that had spun radically out of control. Amidst objections and counter-claims, Sligo took six matches to overcome Roscommon and eventually the title was won by Galway.

The following October, Central Council declared Galway All-Ireland champions, although they hadn't even played a match outside of Connacht. In order to cover up consequent embarrassment, it was decreed that an "in lieu" competition be organised between Galway and the other provincial winners.

In the absence of Kerry (who, hardly to posterity's surprise, decided not to dignify proceedings any further), Galway were at least diplomatic enough to win the competition, concluded in an atmosphere of indifference the following January.

It was the county's first All-Ireland and keeps it in third place on the role of honour, separated from Meath and Cork by only one title. At the following year's congress, a forlorn Mayo motion calling for an investigation into the GAA's administration was defeated.

We have been spared such splendid farce in recent years and the only threats to an All-Ireland championship in living memory were the talk of Galway pulling out of the 1989 hurling championship because of the Tony Keady suspension and, two years ago, the controversy that arose over Sean McLaughlin's disallowed point for Tyrone at the end of the final against Dublin.

Peter Canavan's alleged pick-up cost the county a replay and occupies a warm place in my heart - if I might become a little personal - because it clinched the result that marks the last time I correctly forecast an All-Ireland football result. Since then, four semi-finals and two finals (including a replay) have rolled by impervious to the rigorous and unforgiving logic I apply to the task of predicting their outcome.

Naturally, I prefer to see this as testament to the changed times within the game (I bet it wouldn't have been happening me in the 1970s and '80s as I ponderously advanced all those "Dublin to win", "Kerry to win" previews).

Even within the last two years, there have been variations in the pattern of the season. Last year's emphasis was on the new, with both Meath, especially, and Mayo creating surprises in the semi-finals whereas this year has seen experience prove more influential than form.

Connacht's rehabilitation was begun by Galway two years ago (it's a little over a year since there was widespread wringing of hands that their defeat by Mayo in the provincial final had fatally undermined western chances of building on the improvement of 1995).

Now, Mayo are the first Connacht team in 24 years to have defeated Leinster champions and the first in 23 years to have qualified for two successive All-Ireland finals, although precedent in both cases is discouraging.

The main consideration for the team and management is, however, that they have qualified. Last October, the world wasn't short of football followers who couldn't see Mayo recovering from the trauma of out-playing Meath in two matches and yet failing to beat them.

It has been remarked that Sunday's match resembled the 1992 semi-final between Donegal and Mayo, a match so poor that the watching Dublin players - who had yet to face John Maughan's Clare in the other semi-final - left convinced that they could beat the pick of the two sides. Instead, Donegal were transformed in the final.

Neither Mayo nor Offaly were that bad at the weekend, but neither will Kerry be as bloated with complacency as Dublin were (not merely the complacency of over-confidence, but the self-preening blindness to obvious flaws).

That Mayo go into the final as the gnarled old war horses with two All-Ireland finals behind them whereas Kerry are the newcomers to the big stage is a further illustration of how the scene has changed in recent years.

Despite all the changes and all the obvious advances made by Mayo's evolution into steady challengers, the principal statistic - the most significant of any long-standing football record - to be overcome has clocked forward to 31 years since the title went west.

It's about to come under severe pressure.