SEAN BOYLAN stood in the middle of the Meath dressing room and asked everyone to link arms. Players, subs, selectors and officials formed a large ring and Boylan stood in the middle. "Remember the lads in the other dressing room," he said. "That could be us. One point. It could have been us."

A room that had been vibrating with laughter was sobered into silence for a moment or two. They knew how frighteningly close they had been to that awful scenario. Trevor Giles felt for the Mayo players but, naturally, he could only go so far with his sympathy. "It was them or us and I'm just glad it wasn't us in the end."

At 21 years, Giles has fulfilled his ultimate ambition but was cool and detached as ever. Happy, of course, but not running riot with excitement. "I suppose you're after achieving everything you've ever wanted to achieve in football so, yeah, you'd have to be happy. It doesn't really get much better than this."

He stroked his penalty with his usual serenity despite the surrounding clamour and pressure. "I was fairly nervous I suppose, there was a lot of lads running round me, the goalie was off his line and it took a while for it to happen, so I was just delighted it went in.

"It was a much faster match than the last day, a lot tougher too, even going for the ball was tough. I was very low in energy for most of it, I felt very tired. Mayo are a very good team, make no mistake about it, and they're going to be back for the next few years, it just wasn't there day today but I'm sure they're going to have their day very soon."

Full back Darren Fay's day came sooner than he ever imagined - in his first championship season. His mind was scrambling to absorb it all. "It's absolutely unbelievable, it hasn't sunk in yet, I don't think it will until Wednesday or Thursday."

Fay was in possession when the first half melee ignited. "I caught the ball and I was on the receiving end of a few high challenges, just like you'd get in every other game, but when I looked up people were flaking each other from different sides. I kind of dropped the ball and went in. That's all I saw. I'd say they needed to get it out of their system and after that it wasn't that dirty.

Goalkeeper Conor Martin had a close up of the fracas. "It was ugly, there was a lot of punches thrown, a lot of animosity there, I don't know why."

Midfielder John McDermott said Mayo showed tremendous resilience. "Every time we seemed to be pulling away from Mayo, they kept coming back. There was one or two stages when we got two or three points on the trot and we seemed to be coming into the game but Mayo kept coming back."

Was the wind a factor? "Very much so. You could see it in the kick outs. They weren't getting as far as midfield, they were dropping in the half back line for both goalies. We knew we had it for the second half but the breeze never won any game for anyone.

"It looked bleak before we got the goal, they were two points up, so certainly it was a big plus. I thought the ref was going to blow for a penalty but in fairness he played on."

McDermott was second best to Liam McHale in the drawn game but lost the chance to make amends after McHale's dismissal. He was still going to play his own game, however, with or without McHale. "I didn't give a damn, I don't care who's out in the middle of the field, it didn't worry me where he was."

Meath's quiet full forward Brendan Reilly scored just one point - but no one forgets the score that wins an All Ireland final. "I suppose it was pretty important in the circumstances but I was just delighted it went over.

"Trevor got a good ball, played it into the corner and I was there first, for a change. I think I just sidestepped him and slipped it over. In all fairness to Mayo, they did play very well."