"Commit. Focus. Believe. Achieve " - the recipe for Donegal’s All Ireland success, according to manager Jim McGuinness. In three days time, the Galway hurlers will have to do the same.
Focus on the task in hand, believe they can produce a winning performance, and then achieve their objective of seeing Fergal Moore hoisting the Liam McCarthy skywards in maroon and white ribbons.
It is easily typed, but beating Kilkenny will not be straightforward, All-Irelands are never easily won. If they were, Galway would have won more than just four senior hurling titles; - 1923, 1980, 1987 and 1988, in the history of the game. Now this group of players once again stands on the edge of making history.
On Sunday they need to take the final step to turn those four Galway titles on the GAA roll of honour into five.
They have beaten Kilkenny once this year, drawn with them, and now the acid test is whether they can beat them again - when it really counts.
The Leinster final was nice and it was good to win the county's first Leinster title, but next Sunday is the real deal. To beat what is considered by many pundits to be the greatest team in the history of the game in an All-Ireland final would be incredibly sweet.
The Galway hurlers know they are as good as Kilkenny on current form. They proved that three weeks ago, but can they now go on and beat them?
Fifteen years since Kilkenny lost twice to same opposition
Kilkenny have not lost successive championship matches to the same opposition since Wexford in 1996 and 1997. That is 15 years ago and Brian Cody was not the bainisteoir then. He took over in 1999.
To beat Kilkenny on Sunday, Galway will need really big performances and big performers all over the field. Players will have to get stuck in and give some serious support to Iarla Tannian, Joe Canning, Johnny Coen, Andy Smith, Fergal Moore and Niall Burke, who really took the fight to Kilkenny the last day.
Sunday is a one-off game and hopefully the Galway squad will have benefited from the past three weeks more than Kilkenny. They are a younger team, have less won, fewer miles on the clock, and should be fresher.
Many questions to
be answered
Questions need to be answered this weekend.
Can Galway deliver on the expectation that is in the county now? If they go a few points up on Sunday, can they be ruthless and push on as they did in the Leinster final?
They were seven points in front in the drawn game and were reined in far too easily by Henry Shefflin and company.
Shefflin was awesome at stages the last day and the Galway management team will have to come up with a plan to cope with his influence. The 10-times All-Star orchestrated all his team's best moves from centre-forward and, if he is picked up by Tony Óg Regan or whomever, the Shamrocks’ man needs to be stopped.
Galway have had a solid game plan all year and they now need to have one to stop Kilkenny's key player. If Shefflin is nullified, it would be a huge psychological blow to his team.
The Galway defence and midfielders need to crowd him out and defend fiercely to avoid conceding any goals. They did that successfully in the first game, and it was the first All-Ireland since 2004 in which Kilkenny did not raise a green flag.
The Galway defence, led superbly by Fergal Moore, will have to be extremely vigilant as the Cats have the habit of giving opposition teams the double dart of a couple of quick goals.
If one goal goes past James Skehill this weekend, his defenders will have to be on their feet and battling again straight away. One Kilkenny goal would be bad, two would make things very difficult.
They scored two or more goals in the All-Ireland finals in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011. And they won all those four finals.
Galway will also have to improve on the quality of their clearances under pressure. Brian Hogan had a fantastic second half the last day and it was foolish just clearing ball into the centre-back position. Some of those poor clearances made Hogan look like a hero and, when a team is playing defensively, as Galway were in the third quarter, the consequences of those rushed deliveries is usually defeat.
When Galway funnel back defensively, they need to take a second and pick their targets carefully when they are clearing their lines. They should be trying to hit the spaces out wide instead of the crowd in the middle.
Galway forwards need to be in perpetual motion
At the other end, the Galway forwards will have to be in perpetual motion. When in possession, they need to be exploding towards the Kilkenny goal. Be in their faces all day, then take them on and run at them in possession.
The Kilkenny backs do not like to be run at - what defence does? The Galway forwards cannot be a standing target for Kilkenny or they are in big trouble. The decision to withdraw Joe Canning from the full-forward line is debatable too. He needs to be kept close to the danger zone and fed regularly. And Cyril Donnellan, Damien Hayes, David Burke and James Regan need to chip in with six or seven scores.
Galway can most definitely win their first All-Ireland in 24 years on Sunday if they take the game to Kilkenny and tear into them with the ferocity and fearlessness they did in the Leinster final.
If they keep that intensity of effort and collective unity locked on for the full game, they are well capable of bringing Liam back west for the first time since 1988.
