Keith Duggan talks to Mayo's David Brady, who is again ready to give body and soul for the cause

During the electric convergence between the players of Dublin and Mayo minutes before the All-Ireland semi-final last month, the television cameras seemed drawn to one man. With the famous sky blue colours for a backdrop, David Brady walked slowly and deliberately around the field like a man in a trance, whispering incantations to younger players, his track-suit zipped up to his neck as though to ward off a chill.

In the high excitement of those minutes of bravura, grown men lost their composure but Brady, once the Crazy Horse of Mayo football, was a forcefield of calm. Players listened. Mickey Moran listened. John Morrison listened.

"I was just saying: listen, we have to be cool here," he remembered as the rain lashed down in Castlebar, holding court in a hotel function room. "We could not go in gung-ho and try to battle with Dublin," he declared, reliving those mad minutes. "And we needed a proper warm-up. So we just said; Guys, over here in a line at the far side of the pitch. If anyone gets in your way, step around him. And if you get a belt, either take it or go down. But don't start anything. Look, Mickey has given us an input. That is no secret.

"I have played with Mayo for 13 years and I am around long enough to know what is right and wrong. Mind you some things I reckon are right are probably wrong too. But the time to dance is when the band starts, not when they are tuning up."

It was as though Brady was determined none of the occult forces that have played havoc with so many big days in Mayo football would be allowed to interfere with this one. He considered just being out there a gift. This, after all, was the same man who had cried until his eyes were red on St Patrick's Day last year when he won an All-Ireland club medal with Ballina.

"I have been a loser all my life," he said that afternoon, "but not today. You'll never talk to a happier man who has won an All-Ireland medal. I don't give a shite if I never win again."

He presumed the unexpected and genuine wonderment of that medal would be enough to kill off the fight within. Devastated after being dropped by John Maughan for the 2004 All-Ireland final, he had quit the county panel and had, in his own mind, retired. Then, last autumn, Mayo football elected the northern alliance of Mickey Moran and John Morrison to lead the county. And last December, the Ulster boys came calling on Brady and they spoke about family and faith and his role in it. Brady agreed to one last charge.

Of course, he couldn't do things simply. First came the incident with the horse. It was a neighbour's animal, and Brady was admiring her at Christmas when the owner told him to climb into the saddle. He promised she was like a lamb.

"Giddiest lamb ever I sat up on," he laughs now. "Left me on the concrete with a broken shoulder."

At 32, that might have been taken as a sign. Brady laboured back towards health. During a hard league semi-final against Galway, Mayo needed someone with old-fashioned leadership qualities and Brady was brought on. Within 30 seconds, he received a broken jaw. "There was no malice. I turned around and got hit. But it didn't stop me running or from catching the ball so I decided to play on. The whole side of my face had caved in but I said, feck it, this is Galway. Play on. The next day I went for an operation and had my jaw lifted."

By May, he was "flying" during Mayo's pre-championship preparation in Portugal.

"We had 17 sessions and I was getting blisters. So on the last day, I wore one pair of socks instead of the usual two and twisted my foot and I knew it was broken. But I said nothing. I got a few injections when I got home to play in an A versus B game but sure it was no use. I came out of the clinic in Galway with a cast on my foot and I had to drive home. I had scans for osteoporosis and that because the doctors felt that three bones in six months was a bit much.

"And I sat in that car-park wondering what to do. I could have felt sorry for myself. And if I was 20 years of age, yeah, I would have put the foot up on the couch for two weeks. But I work for a pharmaceutical company and it is a driving job and I am over 30, I have a mortgage. So I got home and I cut the cast off myself that evening. And I was in the gym the next day. Listen, you get over it. The only thing that hasn't been broken is me heart. It is still intact - I hope."

The punch line is followed by the warm, booming laugh that Brady has always been good for.

Asked if he felt his name was on the Sam Maguire cup this year, he shot back: "Listen, nobody has a God given right to it. But if I do get my hands on it, there'll be more than me name on it."

Speaking about the issue of age and modern football, he dismissed his role as the grand old man of Mayo football, declaring: "Kevin O'Neill is 40 years old - and put that on the record!" On the maverick brilliance of coach John Morrison, Brady said: "Hey, we had to coach him a thing or two as well."

Of Moran, Brady observed: "you take guys like Joe Kernan, John O'Mahony, Jack O'Connor. What they have in common is winning an All-Ireland in their first year with a team. And I don't care if Mickey Moran never wins another in his life as long as he wins this year."

Brady is immensely likeable and funny. But do not think for a second he is not deathly serious. The way he tells it, smashing three bones in six months sounds like a bit of a lark. But the work he has put in just to be in contention for a starting place tomorrow must have been close to psychotic.

When we spoke, the Mayo team had not yet been selected and Brady spoke fervently about the possibility of starting what will be his last match for Mayo. He retires for good on Sunday night - barring a draw. "Aw, I would love to be out there . . . If I don't, well I will give it my best, whether I am on for 70 minutes of 70 seconds. And you know, I think probably Patrick Harte should start. These guys carried me here when I was not fit to play and I owe them."

On Wednesday night, he learned he was being held in reserve. Kevin O'Neill, another remarkable veteran, was chosen. But Brady in the wings, waiting to dive headlong into the molten heart of an All-Ireland final, has become the great, romantic motif of Mayo's quest. Despite limited involvement on the field this summer, he has become the omnipotent figure in Mayo's cause. It was Brady who stood up and made the Henry at Agincourt speech at half-time against Dublin as Ronan McGarrity shed tears because he was deemed too concussed to take the field again. It was Brady who came in to take issue with Ciarán Whelan, bossing and lecturing the crestfallen Dublin man throughout the splendour of the second half.

"I was upset by what happened because Ronan McGarrity never flunked anything in his life. He was dying to go out there. We had to be sure he played in an All-Ireland. I felt sorry for Ciarán Whelan after the game. Maybe too much was placed on his shoulders and he was trying hard to make it happen. We all know what that is like. Midfield, it is heavyweight stuff. And you cannot have friends during the game. That's how it is. Midfield, man: it is East versus West."

The old Cold War reference speaks volumes. In sensibility, Brady belongs more to the Mayo of Willie Joe Padden than Tricky Mortimer. He was a child of the 1980s, when thousands were sailing from Mayo, the country broke.

Hugh Lynn, the primary school principal whom Brady praises and thanks to this day, remembers him as "unassuming, quiet and very hard working". "David was always a good young footballer but he worked incredibly hard at the game. I do remember one match around 1987 when he climbed way above everyone on the field to claim a ball and you could see the potential in that instant. But he was probably playing under-21 by the time he started to excel."

He played that grade with Mayo for three years, including 1996 when he became the young thing on John Maughan's team. He has toiled with Mayo in the decade since, a witness and participant in those episodes of psychological trauma of All-Ireland final losses. Being relegated to the substitutes bench for the All-Ireland final two years ago, Brady admits now, absolutely haunted him. He has no grudge towards Maughan: both characters are too huge to indulge in that kind of pettiness. But he believes it was a wrong call and that it had a debilitating effect on the team.

"I had been dropped against Fermanagh and was brought in during the replay and I think I helped turn that game around. But other guys had not being playing well and they were thinking, well if DB can get dropped, so can I. And guys became fixated with making the team, really busting themselves. And after that team was picked, I personally witnessed 11 guys on the treatment table. The whole thing went flat. We forgot about the game, forgot about the All-Ireland.

"If I meet John Maughan now, we will be friendly. But I could not go and play on after all that had happened . . . I suppose I reckoned that was it, that it was all over."

And then Moran and Morrison appeared, angels with silver crew cuts and ideas to burn. They knew what they needed Brady for and they have been employing him in just that role: the agent provocateur, the lone star six-shooter in the photograph above, the voice of wisdom.

When Brady talks about winning an All-Ireland senior football medal now, the jokes disappear and he talks about Willie and Mary, his parents, and about family and the weird way in which this game can take over your life. "You know, I'm not married. Don't know if I ever will be married. But the thing is, this All-Ireland final for us, it is probably the way other people feel about their wedding days."

He talks about this feeling he had when in March last year, days before the club All-Ireland, he felt an almost serene conviction Ballina would become champions. In the past few weeks, he has experienced a similar sensation, a warmth that comes from knowing what is in this team. Mayo are attempting to push against an historical boulder tomorrow and are outsiders. It will take a phenomenal effort.

But there is something wonderfully quixotic about the fact Brady is part of that shove, throwing his cobbled-up bones at the cause for one last, grand day out. "The cross is gone off my shoulders," smiles the saviour of Mayo.

Like the man says, the only thing he hasn't broken is his heart.