In the aftermath of last Sunday, we gathered and tried to pinpoint just where exactly this lay on the ever-growing list of All-Ireland final defeats we’d seen Galway suffer. We cycled through some options. Nothing will ever be worse than the 2024 football final – that’s a given (our generation’s 1983). The supremacy of Limerick in every facet of last Sunday’s hurling decider meant there was no one moment you could look at as a turning point. There was no disputed late free, as there was for the footballers in the 2022 final against Kerry, for instance.Galway had never looked like winning, as they had done at various stages against Kilkenny in the hurling finals of 2012 (the drawn game) and 2015. It was, in truth, probably most similar to 2005, a game Cork were always in control of. In 2018 against Limerick, we had the consolation of being champions. When you’ve only ever won five titles and you are outclassed for 68 minutes of the following year’s final and still come within a whisker of forcing a draw, you can have few complaints.So the losses to Kilkenny in the 2010s still rankle that little bit more. But there’s another non-sporting reason for that too. No one from Limerick was up out of their seats with 10 minutes to go to beat the traffic, even though everything that happened after Cathal O’Neill’s early second-half goal felt like postscript. The feeling of impotent rage I felt as Kilkenny lifted the Liam MacCarthy to an almost-entirely empty stadium after the 2012 replay has left a mark, obviously.As so beautifully articulated by Rob Sutton in these pages on Saturday, Limerick people have had enough bad days to truly appreciate these moments. As one of Rob’s friends put it – “I just can’t believe it’s us”.No more than Galway people, Mayo fans have an extensive menu from which to choose their most heartbreaking All-Ireland final losses of this century. In fact, the senior final record for Connacht teams in both codes since the turn of the century is: 22 finals, two wins, three draws and 17 losses. If it seems like that provides scope for a lot of different kinds of defeats, then you’d be right.A Galway fan watches on during her team's defeat to Limerick in last Sunday's All-Ireland SHC final at Croke Park. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho I wouldn’t tell my neighbours to the north how to feel about their football team, but the days when you were just outclassed in every department, like 2004 and 2006 against Kerry, belong in a very different category to losing brilliant All-Ireland finals against the greatest team of all time in 2016 and 2017. There was heartbreak against the Dubs, for sure, but there was honour too. The 2021 defeat to Tyrone seemed to break something fundamental in the link between the team and the fans, something which was only put back together against Louth in this year’s semi-final.The mood might have been set in Mayo by Andy Moran’s press conference in the immediate aftermath of that win, when he seemed hell-bent on making the point that Mayo fans could and indeed should get excited in the run-up to this All-Ireland final.Hype appears to have been a recurring theme in the GAA this year. Joe Canning found himself in the crosshairs for suggesting that the unprecedented following the Cork hurlers have might weigh on the players in bad ways as well as good. It was a fairly innocuous remark that was nevertheless taken to be a slander on both the fans and the players. Ask the Brazil football team if weight of expectation comes at a price. Of course it does. It doesn’t mean you don’t also want that support and appreciate that support. It’s just not an unmitigated positive either.I have received reports from Mayo that it has been a quiet build-up, all things considered. In that same press conference, Moran asked the assembled grandees of the GAA press corps if any of them gave Mayo a chance in the All-Ireland final. The answer when it came was a simple, apologetic “no”, which no one else had a mind to over-rule. Andy’s thinking was clear, then – why not enjoy it? Thirty other counties would love to be in their position.GAA fans can lose the run of themselves, but they’re not entirely unrealistic. Having spoken to a number of Galway people whose cautious optimism was in danger of spilling over into outright confidence last Saturday evening, I felt moved on Sunday morning to text a hurling man of impeccable credentials. I put it to him bluntly – the likeliest outcome here is a Limerick victory by six points, right? The reply was basically that many things could happen, let’s leave space in our lives for happiness, we should be open to the possibility of being surprised, etc ... but in short, you’re correct.This is the position Mayo find themselves in. Ask any Mayo person this week what the likeliest outcome is and hand on heart, they’ll probably tell you a six-point Kerry victory. If James Horan did anything, he banished non-performances like 2004 and 2006 from the suite of possibilities, only for 2021 to see that spectre re-emerge. A stirring, chest-out, shoulders-back performance might not be enough to win, but it would be enough to retain honour. Whether it’s enough to retain Kobe McDonald might be the more pertinent question.In any case, as the list of defeats for Connacht teams in All-Ireland finals continues to grow, honourable defeat may be scant consolation, but it’s where we find ourselves.