Derek Savage makes a way for himself through the jungle of journalists choking the entrance to the Galway dressingroom. Most players would like to create such a path with a machete, but Savage makes do with excuse me and thank you.

He's fully dressed already and has been on the pitch collecting a Man of the Match award. Strange days filling out a season that looked barren a couple of months ago.

Galway have missed Derek Savage.

Not just the quiet economy of his football, but the perfect reason of his voice in the dressingroom. Those around the team describe him as not a great talker but one of those players with the ability to see both sides of the argument and steer the discussion to the middle ground.

Galway have needed that at times.

This season, though, Savage has had his own worries. When he speaks about the happy serendipity of things, the slings and arrows stuff he is speaking of himself as well as his team. There have been times when he has been just a diagnosis away from packing it in for the year.

"If ever anyone was thankful for the back door system I would be," he says as he stands patiently in a corner of the Galway dressingroom. "I got five minutes against Leitrim the first day, with a broken thumb, then a week before the first Roscommon game I thought my season was gone."

He got one of those stabs in the flesh behind the knee which send sirens blaring in every footballers mind. Cruciate trouble.

Subtract a year from your career.

Do not pass Go.

"I thought the cruciate was done alright, but it turned out it was just the medial ligament which is just a nine/10-week recovery period. Thank God. It's great to be back now. We've Ja back and Paul Clancy came in today. If the injuries start healing up we'll have a good final."

And if Savage had problems, so too had Galway. For a while it seemed as if there would be mutiny in the camp. Voices flared and morale sunk. It took a long season worth of games to put it all back together again.

"Morale went very low after Roscommon game, losing to rivals is hard to take. Then we knuckled down though and we got Wicklow in the first qualifying round which eased us back into the qualifiers. Then we had Armagh and we knew it was make or break against Armagh, they'd be one of the top teams in the country and, if we got over them, we knew we were back in with a shout, it's funny the way the year goes, the momentum starts gathering and, if you can win a couple of games, you can bring it through."

Savages' own form is the best augury a good final may be due to Galway. He got his first start in the return against Roscommon and had two points.

Yesterday, he had three points and a key role in the game that turned the game. Savage took possession and hung on to it calmly till Matthew Clancy steamed into the picture. Not that he was talking any of it up.

"The goal? I was in a bit of trouble, not going very far. He was kind of blocked off, I thought he might be able to get a point,but he turned and hit it. Jesus it was a brilliant goal.

"Not much else to say about it Matt stuck it well, he's the sort of impact player who makes a difference when he comes on."

Until then, Galway had looked oddly out of sorts. They have been playing in little streaks all season and yesterday for, almost 50 minutes, it looked as if they weren't going to bother at all. At half-time they came into the dressingroom, a team playing their seventh big game of the season, or rather not playing and. . . .

"I suppose we said we were lucky to be down by just two points because they were all over us. They got some great scores and we got some lucky kind of snap shots . They had all the play, we said we have to start playing now and again we said we have to go back to basics, Our work-rate in the first half was abysmal in the forwards especially, we were letting them walk out with the ball. When we got the gander up we started tackling like dogs." Still, it came slowly. Very slowly. Savage watched it slip away perhaps.

"Worried is not the way to describe it, we weren't on our game for 45 minutes, but once we started to control the ball that was coming in instead of just lorrying it then we started to break them down.

"Paul Clancy and Matt Clancy had huge influence on the final say and Seβn ╙ Domhnaill in midfield. Everyone plays a part. Late on, when you realise you still have it in your legs, you can start driving and driving, Kevin Walsh and Michael Donnellan started pushing things then because they realised they had it in their legs. That made a big difference."

Savage spent the afternoon in the company of Seβn Marty Lockhart.

New territory for both men. "That was the first time I played on Seβn Marty. He's a top-class defender, very clean and he plays the ball, I was delighted to break even with him, never mind getting the better of him.

It was nice to get a few points, you work hard and some days you get the scores and some days you don't."

And he trails off. Everything that needs to be said has been said. He picks up his kit-bag and heads for the door.

Cool, clean and more than a little heroic.