Perhaps it's the year of the underdog after all. This week, a rampaging Kerry side wear the favourites' tag as their success-starved Connacht foes await in an All-Ireland final in Croke Park.
Haven't we read this story somewhere before?
Galway captain Kate Geraghty is looking fairly close to home for inspiration ahead of the Tribeswomen's latest quest to bridge an All-Ireland Women's SFC drought that stretches back to 2004. A mere 22 years? Sure that's nothing in this day and age.
The raucous scenes of unbridled delirium witnessed at Headquarters on Sunday of last week proved a recurring talking point at the LGFA's All-Ireland finals launch earlier this week. Mayo men's improbable victory ended 75 years of hurt - and prompted those elsewhere who are overdue a title to nudge their team-mates and wonder 'why not us?'.
"They were huge underdogs. Nobody really backed them at all," Geraghty said this week, with our most recent Sam Maguire winners in mind.
"The work rate they put in was just phenomenal. Andy Moran said nobody believed that they could do it, and yet they did.
"People probably think we're underdogs as well at the minute. I don't really read into it too much whether we are or whether we aren't. It's just about your team.
"The pressure is probably on Kerry. They won one two years ago. They beat us. But we just have to focus on ourselves and hopefully get over the line."
If ever a competition found the two best teams in the country to decide the final, this year's LGFA senior championship may have done just that. Galway and Kerry have run roughshod over every opponent the pair faced this summer.
Having taken care of local competition in the provincials - Kerry holding off Waterford by a point in the Munster final while Galway had three to spare over, ironically, Mayo - both sides put on the afterburners when the All-Ireland series kicked into gear.
Kerry ran Tipperary off the park by 18 points, hammered Kildare by 14 and Meath by 12 before laying down a massive marker with a 10-point drubbing of reigning All-Ireland champions Dublin in their semi-final.
Galway were just as merciless, beating Meath by 15, Tyrone by 19 and then reasserting their dominance over Connacht rivals Mayo with a 17-point All-Ireland quarter-final walloping. Perhaps most surprising of all, Galway overwhelmed a fancied Armagh side 0-21 to 0-08 in the last four.
That all would seem to point to a Sunday afternoon shootout on Jones' Road. Geraghty takes the opinion that - not unlike Moran's Mayo - the game is all about percentages. The more you miss, the more you score. But the important thing is that you take your shots when they come your way. Reticence never won anyone a Celtic Cross.
" Kerry's defence is quite good, but, we have the forwards that we know will be able to take shots," Geraghty said.
"If you're not willing to take on the players, what are you there for really?
"Because you're not gonna win a low-scoring game. We just have to be able and ready to take them on when we can, and I think we have the players to do that."
Galway have lost three All-Ireland finals since that last victory over Dublin in 2004 with Sunday's tie representing a repeat of the 2024 decider that saw a Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh-inspired Kingdom claim the honours.
If Mayo's joy last Sunday provoked a feeling of giddy envy in the Galway girls before their own big game, they know all too well what the opposite side of the coin feels like and, after 2024's chastening loss, it's an experience they want no further part of.
" That disappointment, we don't want to feel that again," Geraghty said. "We don't look back on that day too fondly.
"But you have to park that game at the end of the day. This is a different game. We've a different team. The Kerry team is a bit different compared to what it was two years ago as well.
"We just have to focus on how they've been playing throughout the year and the performances that we put in as well.
"In 2019 [Dublin 2-03 Galway 0-04), it was a bit different. It was the first final in a long time. So there was probably huge excitement.
"It was my first year on the panel, and it felt like it was gonna happen every year after that. But, I know now that it's hard come by, and the work that you have to put in.
"When we got to play in Kerry two years ago, we were probably just a bit underprepared, and they were better than us on the day.
"But I don't think that makes or breaks us this year. We have a lot of different players, and the way we've been playing with consistent performances makes a huge difference."
Watch The Sunday Game with highlights of the Women's All-Ireland football finals from 9.30pm. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
