He comes into the dressing-room and the number 11 on his back disappears under a sea of hands and hugs. The last sight you see of him for several minutes is his head ducking into the scrum of good wishes. And the voices, shouting his name like a mantra. Their man.

There is an aspect to Ja Fallon which inspires protectiveness, and people in Galway football shield him and nurture him with the clucking affection of mother hens.

"Ja won't talk to you about that," a Galway person will tell you, "Ja is very shy about talking about himself."

The protectiveness? Perhaps it's the poignant family circumstance which saw him lose both his parents at a young age, being reared afterwards by an uncle amidst a clatter of brothers.

Perhaps it's the Fallon family's central aspect in the life of Tuam, the town which is the epicentre of Galway's football life. They have a store in Shop Street, one of the landmarks of the town.

Perhaps it's his job. He circulates the town every day, walking the beat as a postman. People wish him well, he rewards them with his characteristically diffident salute.

Maybe it's the memory of the good days when Galway teams bursting with ordinary players were kept in games because Ja Fallon's will and skill kept them in them.

Or perhaps it's just the suspicion that he might not be long with us. Being wrapped in civic affection pays no bills and buys no houses. Ja Fallon has a site bought for a house and a future which looks as if it might be played out in the colours of the Galwegians and Connacht rugby teams.

His extraordinary second-half performance in Croke Park yesterday might well be the last glimpse we have of him on this stage. Yesterday, in the aftermath, he was understandably reluctant to speak about his future in either game.

"I'll take a few weeks off and we'll see then," he said. "I'll enjoy this. I have no further plans than that for the moment."

He deserves his few weeks of quiet contemplation. His performance at Croke Park crystallised the difference between the teams. Kildare, for all their energy and dash, had no great forwards. Galway had several very good forwards and one great one.

Fallon set the tempo for the second half, when Galway produced one of the most efficient yet ferocious performances Croke Park has seen for a long time. After a first period where he just about broke even with his marker, Glen Ryan, the ball fell to Fallon out on the left touchline under the new Cusack Stand. Crowded and harassed, he launched a huge kick which dropped down over the centre of the Kildare crossbar.

The impression that Kildare had been rabbit punched was confirmed two minutes later by the arrival of a Galway goal. The grace note to that was a quick point by Niall Finnegan. Four minutes later, in an extraordinary sequence, Fallon clipped his second point of the afternoon, caught the ball from the kick-out and fed Niall Finnegan. Finnegan's score meant Galway had scored 1-4 in the first 10 minutes of the second half. The game was effectively over.

Fallon put his thunderous second-half showing down to the comparatively meek nature of his display in the first period.

"I knew I had to lift my game, because I knew if we were to win I'd have to improve enormously," he said. "I just went out and I gave it my best shot. We all played better in the second half. Halftime was a breather, to settle and focus. We'd lost it, we'd lost that focus, and that's what we got back at half-time."

All year that has been the key to Galway's progress. They have worked on the difficult business of keeping themselves tuned in for 70 minutes. Fallon has his own philosophy on where it went wrong and where it went right.

"In the first half I felt very tired and drained, plus any time I looked inside - and the lads felt this themselves - the lads weren't winning the space as they usually are. Me kicking in a bad ball to them makes them look bad and me look bad. As a team it didn't work out in the first half.

"We came in here at half-time and I knew we'd have to knuckle down in the second half. We came in and we were calm. We got ourselves focused again. We said we'd go out and give it a shot, and it worked out because we knew we had the class."

And the start which Fallon himself provided served to establish the rhythm?

"It's not that. You just go out and do it. First ball. Next ball, every bloody ball. That's how you do it. You never relax, you just keep plugging away and plugging away. Keep playing the maximum. Even during the longest five or 10 minutes at the end. I kept looking at that clock up there, kept wanting it to run faster, but we kept making ourselves go faster."

After Galway's machinegun burst of scores early in the second half, the key moment was once again provided by Fallon. Taking control of a sideline ball situation out on the right touchline, he slung over a wondrous kick to put Galway five points ahead again.

"I saw Ja Fallon's sideline kick," said Derek Savage, "and said to myself if we are not going to win the All-Ireland after that, we never will."

The dressing-room is swimming with people who want a piece of Fallon now. He is uncomfortable with the attention and stands up on the bench, gaining height so he is harder to interview, harder to backslap.

His final formulation before finding the sanctuary of the showers concerns the virtue of patience.

"There were always signs that we could do it," he says, "It's all about keeping at it and the football will come out in its own time. You'll never be as good as you can be unless you give it the full year commitment. You have to accept that. I enjoyed the second half, it's all about the team winning. It's worth it for that. It all comes good in its own sweet time."

None sweeter than yesterday.