It momentarily took a few seconds to get used to the noise. What was that? Where is that coming from?
Out of the tunnel, plastic boxes in hand, a quick dash to the left to lay them on the ground and then out for the team photo - but this was slightly different than the ten last times they followed the same routine.
Because this time, there were supporters in the ground, their supporters. For the first time since the first of March last year, Mayo had supporters behind them at a game.
Real live supporters, not just the lucky few of us who’ve been able to see those last ten games in the flesh - family members, friends, partners and even an old team mate had made the trip to Ennis for Mayo’s league semi-final against Clare.
Now, there might not have been that many supporters, a couple of hundred all in, mixed with the good, the great and just getting by like your correspondent here from the press core and the all important men and women in high-viz jackets.
But it made a difference, scores were cheered, tackles moaned at, misplaced passes brought gurns from a stomachs that spent the last year moving from homemade sourdough and through all the early lockdown cooking fads - before getting back to a full game day fry before hitting the road to somewhere down the country for a league game.
A little bit of normality had returned, a very small bit but a welcome one. And it brought the mind back to last December in Croke Park and while all in Mayo would have bloody well taken ending that accursed run of bad luck in finals, that has nothing to with curses - if it had happened.
But after all the miles the Mayo faithful have put in over the last decade or so, it would have been a shame that they wouldn’t have been there to see it in the flesh. But saying that, no-one from the bridge in Shrule to where the wild waves roll in on the most northern Erris shore would have shouted stop.
There’s a whole series of books to be written on the psyche of the Mayo supporter, never mind the players.
New York - 'No bother, start saving for that two years out’, London - ‘Great, sure we’ll make a weekend of it and catch up with the cousins’, Tralee on a raining wet February Saturday night - ‘We’ll manage it up and down in the day this time’, Croke Park - ‘Sure, it’s just like MacHale Park, we're there so often the car can drive itself’.
Whatever it is that feeds the soul of the men, women and children of Mayo to not think a bit about packing the car and travelling to any end of this island and further afield, when the could be safely ensconced at home on the couch is something wonderful.
It’s a spirit that has kept this county going against all the odds, no more than what drove the thousands who left these shores over all the years to set up home in every corner of the globe and become successes.
On Saturday the latest chapter in the great Mayo adventure is about to get underway. When they take the left turn in the middle of Charlestown and head for Sligo.
Once again there will only be a handful of supporters in situ, but they will be fully behind their team, they might not make as much noise as the Mayo crew that would have packed out the ground in the shadow of Benbulben under normal circumstances, but it’s great they’ll be there.
We can only wait for the day to come soon when, the scramble for tickets is smelt in the air as strongly as that of pints being spilt in a Drumcondra pub three hours before throw-in on All Ireland final day.
