No frills in Castlebar. The drenched Sligo crowds do not delay in heading back towards the N17, while on the field, the Galway players gather. It is hard to tell if they are celebrating or just trying to keep warm. Seán De Paor is standing chatting with some friends.

"It's great to get this, it was a difficult game with the conditions. I suppose the penalty was important. We were only three points up at the time and Derek put it away really wonderfully. Even in the second half it was tough and Sligo came back at us well."

De Paor looks satisfied but hardly ecstatic at winning Connacht. Perhaps the picture has changed for Galway over the past four years, especially after last summer's scenic route to the All-Ireland title.

"Well, there are players on this Galway team, like Alan Keane and Kieran Fitzgerald, and this is their first Connacht medal. It matters a lot to them. You know, there is no way anyone here treats the idea of being in a Connacht final lightly. It was great to win and we have four or five weeks to the qualifiers now. We will go back to playing club and regroup and take it from there."

There is a shivery afternoon gloom about the Sligo dressing room. It feels like the league in February. Peter Ford looks sharp and appropriately sombre in a black suit.

"We only got going in the last 15 minutes, it was just a matter of us running out of time. I suppose the wind was very strong out there and both teams were going to get a half each. That's the way it turned out. What I was disappointed with was the way we failed to close them down in the first half. Our work-rate was not at the level we expected and I felt our forwards didn't close their backs down quickly enough.

"But at least we didn't just die and with the way things were going, I felt we could come back. But, you know, you have to plan for a 70-minute game, not 75 and we just ran out of time."

There was the sense in Castlebar yesterday the Connacht final represented different things to each county. For Galway, it seemed like a means to an end. For Sligo, who have twice championed the province in their history, it still carried the allure of a rare day out, an end in itself.

"It is very disappointing, having qualified, that we couldn't win it. It is not that easy to get to a Connacht final and maybe we were unlucky to be playing Galway in the form that they are in right now."