James McCarthy had it about right. Brian Fenton went further. Insane, he said. In a good way. Obviously.

It featured a dramatic winner from Dean Rock which sailed over the bar despite the best, and most desperate, of attempts by Mayo to distract the Ballymun man.

Lee Keegan made a darting run across his eyeline as Rock went through the mechanics of winning the game and photos emerged later of a GPS device in mid-air not far from where the Dubliner was swinging his boot at the ball.

“They were trying every trick in the book,” said McCarthy. “I think it was a GPS someone threw at him? But look, it doesn’t matter now. He kicked it.”

Dublin answered in kind, of course, a phalanx of them wrestling with opponents from the resultant kick-out in a bid to hold on to the lead.

Conjecture and argument will spill over through the week to come but Dublin ultimately found a way when a way had to be found. People said this would be an All-Ireland played on a blank canvas. That Mayo’s familiarity with September and the pressures it brings would offset their failure to have reached October with Sam in tow.

Interesting then to listen to Fenton talk about the belief imbued by a dressing-room with so much silver to it. And McCarthy, one of the dozen of those on the 26 yesterday for whom this was a fifth Celtic Cross, echoed that theory.

“The first one (in 2011) was huge,” he said. “It gives you that bit of belief and gives you a bit of insatiable hunger to win more. But I’m just lucky to be around at a time when these players come together.

“We’re very close. That’s the biggest thing for us. And it means that when it comes down to the line, you look at each other and drive through and pull it out of the bag.”

This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.