THICK green and red stripes mark the centre of the road in the village of Hollymount, near Mayo's border with Galway. Local boy Noel Connelly is leading the county team against Meath. It's time to beat the tribal drum.
The marching season is over in the North, but in Mayo it has just begun. Almost every town and village in the county is festooned with flags and banners. Scarecrows and teddy bears wear green and red, and dozens of songs have been composed for Sunday's all Ireland clash with Meath.
The local press is selling well with 40 page supplements on the match. A small boy from Dublin is making a fortune selling flags on the main street in Castlebar.
"Me Ma brought a thousand down yesterday and look at all I've left," he said, pointing to a bundle of about 30 flags.
The young entrepreneur tried to sell The Irish Times one for £2, but dropped the price when he discovered the reporter was not a native - "I'll give it to you for £1.50."
It's a far cry from 1936, the year Sam Maguire came to the county for the first time. The Irish Press said then the team "let loose a torrent of brainy, crafty, spectacular football" that overwhelmed - Laois and delivered an 18 point win.
The captain on the day was Seamus O'Malley, now 92 and the only surviving member of that brainy team. At his home in Claremorris yesterday he recalled Sam's shy debut in Mayo.
"I was a teacher and I had to be back at school the next morning. So I came home through the night and I brought the cup," he said.
He reached Claremorris in a hired car at about 8 a.m. on the Monday. It was fair day and the main street was packed with cattle and sheep. A few of the farmers recognised O'Malley and his driver and came over to have a gawk at Sam before returning to more serious business.
Mr O'Malley is confident Mayo will confound pundits and snatch a win. Like almost everyone else in the county, he has high praise for John Maughan who, as Mayo manager, has brought the team from despondency to an all Ireland final.
One straw in the wind was this year's Connacht final between Galway and Mayo. He says it reminded him of the "great contests" between the two counties during the 1930s.
"It's coming back very much in Mayo this year, and in Galway, too." The confidence the Mayo manager has instilled in the seems to have rubbed off on entire county, judging by "SAM 96 MO" signs in shops cars.
On the road to Balla a battered Honda motorbike is mounted on concrete block, ridden by a scare crow in a Mayo jersey, who wears a Hallowe'en mask and wellies.
Elsewhere a sign in Irish makes a simple boast: "Beidh Sam anseo De Luain". In Balla, the village made famous by the blind Gaelic poet, Raifteiri, they talk about the players and the hype, but above all else they talk about tickets.
John Dempsey won an all Ireland minor medal for Mayo in 1985. He has a story about a man in Boston who wanted to charter a plane and bring home 220 Mayo people for the match. He rang a friend in Ireland to ask him to organise 220 tickets. The response was a strangled gasp.