IN THE chilly sunlight of Páirc Tailteann there was the unexpected sight of St Vincent's manager Mickey Whelan throwing back his head and cackling uninhibitedly at the great good of it all.
Thirty-two years ago he played during and coached the club's only All-Ireland title to date. Now at 69, he has brought the club - outsiders in Dublin, Leinster and certainly yesterday against the greatest club of the modern era (four times All-Ireland champions in the past 11 years) - back to a first final since 1985.
"Vincent's deserve that," he declared. "They're a phenomenal club. Go up there and see kids all over the park playing hurling, football and camogie - they're just a super club and I'm delighted for them.
"We played some fabulous football and we'd effort all over the field, a phenomenal group of young people and even the veterans and the veteran veterans were fabulous on the day."
Curiously the side has saved its best displays for semi-finals where they defeated recent Leinster champions Kilmacud and Portlaoise but yesterday was a magnificent achievement.
They got All-Ireland champions Crossmaglen into the strangest territory the formidable Armagh club has ever experienced in six All-Ireland semi-finals. Using the wind to devastating effect and eight points clear by the 14th minute, the Dublin club set an unanswerable asking price on the match.
"The intention was to repeat what we did in the Leinster final," said Whelan. "They like to keep the game tight and slow it down but we have goalscorers and decided, 'listen let's be brave here and stick to our game. We know what they can do - let's maximise what we do'."
Captain Tomás Quinn, whose contribution to the team was afterwards eulogised by his manager, echoed that belief in the importance of exerting early pressure. "We played a lot of good football but we knew we needed a good start because if it's close in the last few minutes they've shown they're good at closing out games and shutting things down.
"We found it very hard in the second half playing into the wind, found it hard to create chances. It wasn't that we missed an awful lot; we just didn't create much and they were coming at us in waves. So the first half was very important."
Crossmaglen manager Donal Murtagh gave the impression that he'd been expecting the worst since the first quarter and that his forebodings had proved accurate even though his team had scrambled with characteristic determination to bend the match to their will.
"The two goals were the difference between the teams. We have conceded goals of late, which was a bit of a worry. The pace and power they played with in the first half and the way they ran at us caused us all sorts of trouble.
"We needed a goal at some stage but the goal never came. We were kicking it in long but they dealt with it well."
