A malevolent February wind spat and hissed across Father Tierney Park in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, on the afternoon that Corofin ended Dungiven's run in the All-Ireland club semi-final. As the entire parish invaded the turf, Ray Silke, the club captain, warmly accepted the embraces and felt with cold certainty that Corofin would win the All-Ireland.

"I believed that if we could just get past the semi-final, we would win. Having reached the same stage in '91 and '95, there was a feeling that this was the year we had best produce it. Lads like Gerry Burke and Gerry Donnellan, the chemistry and mix of players we had only comes along once in a lifetime and we knew we had to act on it."

And so on St Patrick's night, a stream of house-lights guided the meandering, jubilant cavalcade towards the bunting and bonfires in Corofin village, Ray Silke brandishing the Andy Merrigan Cup. That historic club win, it seems, has fanned the county's passion for football once more, so much so that on Sunday, the fans will doff their maroon and white caps only to a solid Galway win in the Connacht football final.

"If you look at it statistically, Roscommon have two Connacht titles this decade. We have won just one since 1987. Yes, there is a great buzz now, what with Corofin winning and the under-21s going well in the All-Ireland and a high-profile manager like John O'Mahoney coming in. But if we go to Tuam with any degree of over-confidence, we will get what we probably deserve, a good hammering from Roscommon."

Silke earnestly stresses that Galway are not considering the permutations of this championship beyond July 19th but occasionally he permits himself to step back and examine his county's recent sparse history.

"Three generations of Galway men have played football without an All-Ireland," he said. "That's why I hope to God the county wins one before the millennium. If the game is to progress here, kids need heroes, they need people to look up to or they will be lost to the game."

While gaelic football still thrives in the rural strongholds of the county, the city game, once a sparkling well, now languishes in mediocrity.

"It's got to the stage where there is only one senior club (Salthill) there now," said Silke. "There are so many choices now for a young athlete. Soccer is very popular, rugby is thriving and, I mean, it's possible for lads to pick up a few quid playing the other sports where in gaelic, the most you will get is a `well done'. Possibly we need a development officer in Galway city."

The smiling, sepia-toned images from the three-in-a-row days hang prominently in most of Galway's football pubs, sombre proof of a once superior dynasty. The county's most recent championship escapade in Croke Park was defined by raw promise and a fatal naivety. Silke, after debuting for Galway in 1994, played in that All-Ireland semi-final failure against Tyrone the following summer.

"The Peter Canavan 1-7 loss," he laughs. "Yeah, we had a lot of plaudits heaped on us after that match, like `oh, ye did really well'. But we lost a game we should have won. It was kinda condescending in a way."

Throughout the 1990s, Galway huffed and strived and lost a sequence of provincial finals and their failure to feature on August days became nothing unusual.

"John Tobin just never managed to cross that line, he had no luck. We lost narrowly to decent Roscommon teams and then in 1994 Leitrim beat us by a point. It's a strange business, championship."

Just a little. Roscommon, for instance, were simply supposed to fail meekly in this year's Connacht campaign. Now, they have come through two team-shaping games against Sligo and travel to Tuam this Sunday with an ability which even the players might have difficulty determining. In contrast, the memory of Galway's facile win over Leitrim has already grown cloudy.

And Silke, as captain, will chide and praise as need be, a tidy, influential wing back. At 27, he is already the stuff of lore in the townlands of Corofin and is quietly intent on ending Galway's decades of sad regret and nearly tales. Yet deep down, he is smart enough to know that come Sunday evening, Tuam 1998 might just be another to add to the litany.