The first and last time Corofin won an All-Ireland club football title, in 1998, some of the impetus spilled over into the county, as Galway also won the All-Ireland later that year. No one is talking about a similar double just yet, although Corofin have already achieved something unique.

No big deal

For

Stephen Rochford

, who won an All-Ireland club football title as a player with his Mayo club Crossmolina, in 2001, lining out at corner back, now comes the part where he wins one as manager of another club.

That’s never been done before, not that Rochford was making any big deal of it.

“I’m just absolutely delighted to get across the line, no matter what shape it took,” said Rochford, calmly, yet assuredly.

“Okay, so I’ve won it now as a manager and won it as a player. They’re two separate emotions but two that are very, very satisfying. It makes very little difference from the point of view of it being the first time ever.

“But they do differ. As a player, you feel that you’ve got control within the 60 minutes. As a manager, you’ve got to relinquish that control, maybe half-an-hour before the game, and you hope the guys go out and execute the agreed plan. And thankfully they all did that, and in fairness to the boys, they’ve done it over the 10 games of the championship.”

Tactful manager

Typical of a tactful manager like Rochford, he was also finding some fault in his time, if only because it took them a while to impose their game on the Derry champions.

“At first I thought we were just kicking the ball a little bit far from out the field, and were making it a little bit easier for the full-back line in Slaughtneil to put pressure on our inside line.

“Then I think we won nearly all our kick outs in the first 25 minutes, maybe one we lost. It’s difficult to cover every space in Croke Park and our view was, if we could win the ball in defence, on turnovers or whatever, we should move it with pace inside their ‘45’ before they could get their numbers back”.