Although Leitrim's sudden elevation towards the bright lights again has warmed the locality, the feel-good factor has been slightly tempered in the wake of Galway's sacking of Sligo. In 1994, there was a genuine sense that Leitrim had engineered a slow-burning reliable momentum, that they were, as the saying goes, "a coming team".

This Connacht final appearance bears no such comparison. A young team, on the back of a modestly encouraging league, have surprised themselves and the country by beating Roscommon and now take a step into the unknown. Privately, they must believe they have a chance of felling the monster, but when Joe Reynolds envisages the game, there is a quiet realism to his tone.

"To a certain extent there is pressure on Galway as they are expected to win so convincingly, but there is also pressure on us. Our lads don't want to go out and get destroyed by Galway the way Sligo did and I know we will be feeling that early on," he says. "Galway will test us in the first minutes and, if our lads can cope with that, I believe they will grow in confidence and get the thing going."

Reynolds' re-integration to Leitrim senior football could not have been more timely. When John O'Mahony departed, Reynolds felt too exhausted to seek his own nomination and decided to step back. When a vacancy arose again, he was involved with the Leitrim under-21s. Only last season, when it seemed the senior squad was at an impasse, did he agree to plunge into management again.

"I could see some of the older lads, particularly some of the '94 guys were a little disillusioned and that really encouraged me to go back in there, because I knew they were still hungry to give a bit more to Leitrim football. They were disappointed with the way things had worked out and I felt that there was something to offer and that I was willing to stick it out for a year."

While John O'Mahony is renowned as a methodical and exacting master of preparation, Reynolds also strikes one as a thorough, sharp observer. He must have his own plans for Galway tomorrow.

"Well, I think that every team has tried to identify potential weaknesses in this Galway team and to work on those, but it hasn't had much of an affect. We have to be optimistic as well and focus on our own strengths. But, we recognise that, if we were to win this, things would have to go very well for us and maybe run against Galway."

The sense of joy that streaked through the county after qualifying for this final was sidelined by the Colin Regan controversy. While it was a devastating turn of events for the player and the team, it also perhaps helped refocus their thoughts.

"I think we were all a bit surprised by the incident because Colin is, on and off the field, a sportsman. Always has been and he is disappointed himself. The players, of course, feel sorry for him that he will miss this game and you know, Colin is still sort of around and about with us, so I think he can have a positive effect on the lads prior to the game and that they could respond to that."

In the wake of a sequence of stunningly inconsistent disciplinary sentences over the course of the championship, the severity of the punishment handed out to Regan must have been hard to stomach.

"Well, I thought the suspension was a bit harder than might have been expected, that two months might have been the norm. But the GAC had to deal with it and the fact that it was highlighted so much on the TV maybe made them feel they had to send a signal to everyone else. We have to accept that incidents like that should not happen on a field.

"But the video evidence, well, it seems to be selective and it would appear to be a very dangerous road that the GAC are going down because some incidents are highlighted and others ignored."

The sight of Regan in street clothes will certainly be emotive for the squad and, in reaching this stage, they have already displayed considerable character, refusing to fold after Roscommon raided them for three first-half goals.

"They were a blow, but when we got to the dressing-room we were only five points down and it wasn't so hard to pick the lads up again. Things really couldn't have gotten much worse so we went out and did the business. But it's a habit we have, falling behind early and then fighting. And we can't do it against Galway. Giving three goals to them would be a different story."

Reynolds' adventure could well end with Leitrim's season. He reckons the team need a three-year deal and, after this year, he can at least point to the restoration of a defined purpose and sense of worth.

"Well, who knows what is going to happen after Sunday? John is a shrew kind of operator and he'll build up our chances and the possibility of an upset. The problem is, when you lose a championship lads tend to throw in the towel. So we would hope that the lads will gain from this and come again. But that's along way down the road."