Such was the sweeping, at times awesome, nature of Galway's destruction of Sligo in the semi-final that it has become the only reference point by which the team is judged. People think Galway now and see points being struck from a dizzying array of angles. They see championship calibre.

Shortly after that match, anyone who saw Galway manager John O'Mahony would have noticed that he looked far from thrilled. Sure, there was much to savour in the manner of the performance but those landslides carry attendant dangers. One, of course, is that Leitrim, Galway's opponents on Sunday, are now being more or less politely dismissed.

"You have to ask how much our win over Sligo had to do with their own non-performance," argues O'Mahony.

"If you take our New York performance, well, it was very poor. So you don't know, you don't want to fall into that trap. But the performance we gave in Sligo will not be good enough to win on Sunday. Things will happen in Hyde Park that didn't happen in any of the previous games."

After Galway's inexplicable second-half collapse against Mayo in the 1999 Connacht final, O'Mahony is more aware than most of the capricious pattern of sport. It can only have been frustrating, therefore, to hear talk of Galway and All-Irelands when he is still trying to get out of Connacht.

"I'm not very au fait with such talk but I am prepared to accept that it is going on. I just think that it is insulting to Leitrim. Having worked so closely with Joe (Reynolds) and many of the Leitrim players, I know what they are about. And very few teams could afford to give Roscommon a seven-point lead and still come back to win it. I think Joe must have had some magic formula going then."

The impact of Galway's steamrolling path was magnified by the apparent turbulence that beset their summer campaign, with Tomas Mannion forced to retire and then Ja Fallon wrenching his leg. Those losses, combined with Kevin Walsh's battles with injury, appeared to rob Galway of three vital linchpins, men of irreplaceable substance and imagination.

"People seem to have forgotten all that now," says O'Mahony. "And how good are we without them . . . well it has yet to be proven. But my hope is that new lads will step in. Names that aren't being mentioned now for us, might be later in the summer. One of the great successes of 1998 was the introduction of the six under-21s who became the stars of that year. And as a manager, this is one of the great joys, seeing who might emerge now."

There is, of course, solid fact to back the overwhelming anticipation that Galway will comfortably defeat or even crush their opponents on Sunday. An exit at this stage would represent an inestimable disappointment for O'Mahony and his players. It is unlikely to happen and mostly because he will not allow his squad to hear the hype.

"It should be pointed out that there are plenty of Leitrim players going into this game with a 100 per cent record going into Connacht finals," he says. "Can't say the same about our lads."