TWO scenes at the end of a long year. John Maughan standing in a little ante room surrounded by reporters. His complimentary sponsors' suit hanging on a peg on the wall. He looks as though he could stay there forever reliving the "horror of it. Eventually a tracksuited man enters. Claps his hands. "I think in fairness he's given you enough lads." Maughan wakes from his reverie, strolls straight out.

Minutes later in the long tunnel which runs the length of the new stand somewhere below ground level in Croke Park, two men in green shirts and white caps are ambling along.

"Any idea where we are?" "No."

"Are we going the right way?"

"Don't know."

They are both laughing. Carrying a big cup. Sean Boylan and Tommy Dowd.

End of a long year. Boylan and Maughan's final football duties wrapping up the quotes business with the press.

"Like a dream come true," says Boylan, "if you're around for a long time you always feel you have the knowledge to do it but not the legs. The lads today, quite a number of them, dug really, really deep and found something that got them out of jail."

Boylan has just visited the shell shocked Mayo dressingroom, addressing his kind words at the whitened faces within. His message was familiar but sincere. Mayo had played well. Mayo would be back. The Mayo players had just heard John Maughan tell them something similar.

"The message," said Maughan, "is that I'm proud of that bunch of players. They started off last October with pedigree and potential. I just thanked them for what they have given. We saw a proud bunch of players out there. I thought they deserved to win an All Ireland."

BoyIan and Maughan scarcely know each other but would identify themselves as kindred souls at the opposite ends of managerial careers. Boylan has been toiling with Meath for 14 years now.

He almost packed it in last winter when he was opposed for the management position.

"There were doubts last year, he said yesterday, "but younger players rang me and wanted me to keep going. I'm very thankful to Shane McEntee for having opposed me last year. I might have become complacent. I found two selectors who brought the best out of me. I thought about quitting then and I'd thought about quitting in 1992 and funny enough I thought about it on the night after we won in 1988. I was so exhausted.

"This year though before the Lao is match we sat down and we talked about a simple thing. Why wait until you are 26 or 27 years old to win an All Ireland? There is something you see in a man, something that he has in him, some suggestion that he has what it takes. You can't put that into someone. Then we had to create a platform."

Maughan, whose team had just come within an ace of winning a shock All Ireland, identified the same qualities.

"An All Ireland remains our ultimate goal. I won't die happy unless we achieve that. I feel content and happy that we made the right decisions today. Not guilty about anything.

"We conceded two dubious goals, freak goals and then lost by a point. That's hard to take. Time will tell how we recover but being a Mayo man managing your own county, it's a nice position to be in. As long as there is football in this team's legs they will continue on looking for an All Ireland."

Predictably, the questions flowed about the fifth minute scrap which robbed the game of two of it's principle characters and possibly shaped the outcome.

"We hate wind, everything becomes a lottery, skirmishes happen," said Sean Boylan, "The ball went into the square, a player went up and got it, I think he was decked. I can't tell what happened after. All I could see was about 30 lads involved. The ball had been hanging there, when you get uncertainty you get incidents."

John Maughan comments focused on the removal of Liam McHale from the scene.

"Liam was on the receiving end of quite a number of blows. It was difficult having him sent off. I suspect if that hadn't happened, we would have won the All Ireland today.

"It's not something I like to see, but if it starts you can't stand back. I don't know who started it or if we will ever know, but we showed that we weren't going to be on the receiving end.

"Liam McHale is one of the outstanding midfielders in the country. We missed him.

"On the referee in general it would be unfair for me to comment. Others will comment. I don't know. The penalty decision, well questions will be asked about that. The general feeling in the dressingroom is that there was some harsh decisions against Mayo. I'm not going to apportion blame or suggest that anyone lost the game for us. We just didn't do it."

There was a consensus that whatever had happened in terms of extra curricular activity, the winning and the losing of the game had been in Mayo's hands in the second half. Sean Boylan had begun to despair as Mayo refused to lie down.

"It looked as though the game was going away from us in the second half. Trevor Giles had an extraordinary game, the defence did so much work. This man Tommy Dowd led from the front. If we hadn't been involved ourselves we'd have been cheering for Mayo. I'm sure they are in bits. They kept coming back at us today.

"On quite a few occasions I wondered if we would be able to get on top. Mayo seemed to come back so often, moving the ball out of defence, with great purpose. Hard to contend with."

For Boylan yesterday was sweet vindication. Defeat would have meant three losing finals since Meath's last success. He reflected briefly on the years, good and bad:

"Maybe the things you remember are the days you are beaten. All the work you do to get there. Everything sort of goes out the window when you are beaten in an All Ireland. Not bringing home the bacon can be rough. These lads put in an extraordinary effort going back to last October.

"When we were beaten by Mayo in the spring there were signs we saw that day, things we saw about certain players which helped us formulate the team. We went on from there. A few experienced players and a few good young players. It was determination and self belief that got us here.

"The All Ireland remains our ultimate goal," said Maughan. "I won't die happy unless we achieve that."

It could be said that Sean Boylan could die happy now.

"It's one of the most emotional days of my life lads," he says holding back the tears. He looks so soft and gentle that you wonder how he does it.