The county limped up to Owenbeg to face Derry in the first round of the All-Ireland qualifiers this summer, their confidence drained by a run of 12 straight defeats in O’Byrne Cup, league, and Championship stretching back to their Leinster final loss to Dublin in 2017.

Cian O’Neill’s time in charge of his native county looked to be all but over. The next defeat, it was said, would be his last. Then Kildare accounted for Derry, squeezed past Longford in Pearse Park and aimed their slingshot at the Goliath that was Mayo.

Cue delirium. Beat Fermanagh tomorrow evening and they make the Super 8s.

“Yeah, we were a sick dog waiting to be put down, I think that’s how it was put,” said Flynn. “Going up to Derry we didn’t know what to expect but we kind of fed off the win we got up there. We got through another tough game against Longford and fed off that as well.

“I think it’s just the momentum you get in the qualifiers. There’s no magic or miracle. We didn’t change anything in training, maybe we just got on top a few times and that criticism has bonded us together a bit more as well.”

There was no Damascene conversion. No lightbulb moment. Just a bunch of players who convened after the seven-point loss to Carlow and realised that there was no more room for error and no-one to lean on but themselves.

There was talent in the room. Clearly. Tomás Ó Sé had pointed out as much earlier this summer: It was the reason he had been so critical of them.

The stand taken against the GAA’s attempt to move the Mayo game was maybe the moment that hardened them to the task at hand.

Cian texted us before he went on the telly and asked what everyone wanted to do. He asked did we want to play the game in Newbridge and everyone said yes. That was the end of it on our part. Anyone that rang us, we just said we didn’t want to talk about it.

Flynn found the affair was starting to “get on my nerves” for the earlier part of the week but that dissipated when Croke Park backed off and, though it added pressure onto their shoulders, he began to enjoy it long before throw-in.

His girlfriend told him how co-workers where she started an internship had all quizzed her on whether she was going along to St Conleth’s Park when they discovered she was from Kildare and he concedes that the brouhaha ultimately played in their favour.

“If it had been just fixed for Newbridge and that was that, and nothing was made of it, it would have been just another home game. I’ve never seen the support we got. The whole county was covered in white. That had a big impact on it.”

The manner of their win against Mayo can’t be underestimated.

They lost to Monaghan and Tyrone by just a point in the early rounds of this year’s league and then followed it up with a two-point defeat to Donegal.

There was a sense even then that winning one of those games could have kickstarted their season.

“We were disastrous in the league,” said Flynn. “We sort of buckled, we folded whenever the pressure came on, but we thrived on it this time. I don’t know what it is. Maybe we hit rock bottom against Carlow and then had the couple of wins against Derry and Longford.”

Whatever they’re doing now, it finally seems to be working for them.