The talking is nearly over.

Dublin and Mayo go into Sunday with two very different journeys behind them. Dublin have been flawless, and are in pursuit of a third successive Sam Maguire. Mayo have lots of flaws, are 66 years without Sam, but they’ve heart, they’ve more of a reason than anyone.

Here’s what we imagine is going to happen in both dressing rooms.

Mayo:

It’s 3:00 on Sunday and the Mayo dressing room under the Hogan Stand is the only thing that matters. The only thing.

Manager:

Stephen Rochford is striding around the dressing room like a man possessed. He’s doing laps of the physio table in the middle of the floor, for some reason, but he’s thinking, he’s stroking his chin. He’s planning something, something big.

He puts his hand on Fergal Boland’s shoulder, but nobody knows what it means.

Colm Boyle is shitting himself, though.

Layout:

There’s a hushed silence. Everything is tightly packed, everybody’s close together. Diarmuid O’Connor is sitting beside his brother Cillian, who has his eyes closed and earphones in.

The players:

Silence. The air is sucked out of the room. Whispers.

“What’s going on here?” says Conor Loftus to Evan Regan a little too loudly, and he immediately realises that and puts his head back down to his gear bag.

Diarmuid O’Connor looks tired, even though the team hasn’t warmed up yet. Andy Moran is the first man up to take one of the Jaffa Cakes that Tony McEntee put on the table.

He takes one, and puts another in his half-zip pocket, and continues towards the bathroom.

Donal Vaughan is performing a bench-press routine there, but Andy isn’t surprised. He grunts, he groans, and he’s not taking any bullshit today.

The stage is Andy’s and he starts stretching, first a normal hamstring stretch, but before long he’s standing on his head.

‘Shoes, throw us over some white tape’ shouts Cillian O’Connor and Donal Vaughan fires it over to him.

Keith Higgins starts slapping his legs, and then shouting. The slapping is getting louder, this man means business.

Aidan O’Shea puts his phone into his gear bag. Colm Boyle is still shitting himself.

“Two minutes lads,” says Donie Buckley.

Rochford takes centre-stage. He looks around the room, man to man, eye to eye.

It’s life or death, it’s shit or bust and the lads know that, you can feel that.

Speech:

“How much do ye want it lads? How much? Because I’d die for it, I’d die for ye to win it.

“These cocky b*stards, they’re in their own back yard, lads, they think all they’ve to do is show-up. 

“Remember this dressing room last year, lads, when we should have beaten these lads. We should have won it then, but we didn’t, and now, now we’re back here again, and I can tell you one thing, we’re not going to let this slip away, are we?

“Aidan O’Shea has taken shit all year and said nothing. Nobody knows who Brendan Harrison is, but he’s the best corner back in the country.

“We’re better than these boys, we want it more, I know we do, and every one of ye to a man, ye’re going to die with yer’ boots on out there. I know ye are.

“We’ll be back here at 5:15 and Cillian O’Connor will be holding Sam Maguire, and from Crossmolina to Ballina, there’ll be smiles, they’ll be proud.

“Let’s show them boys, let’s f*cking show them. 66 f*cking years.”

Dublin

Across the way, it’s calm and it’s much quieter.

Manager: Jim Gavin tells Diarmuid Connolly to trust the process, and Connolly doesn’t know what he means, but he nods his head anyway.

Gavin puts on his peaked cap, but is struggling to attach his ear-piece to his Dublin zippy.

Layout: 

Jonny Cooper is panned out on the ground on his foam-roller, and Eric Lowndes is using his new speed bands. It’s a lot more all-over-the-shop than the Mayo dressing room, it’s very dishevelled.

Players:

Bernard Brogan puts on his compression tights in the warm-up area. Paul Mannion is doing countless high knee reps in the corner.

You can hear the Mayo lads roaring, and Kevin McManamon shouts “Oh shut up.”

John Small is shadow-boxing in the corner. Eoghan O’Gara must be starting, because he means business.

Paul Flynn takes in the last sip of his Protein Milk, and tells the rest of the lads that it’s good stuff.

Speech:

“We all have to facilitate each other to achieve this lads. We’ve put in the work, and we’re up against a great team today, one of the best in the country.

“We’ve had many frank discussions about it on the training ground lads, well all the talking is done now.

“You’ve all put in the hard-work, now go out and show it.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Game on.

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