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30th September 2016
10:21am BST

"I said, 'We've a game there about 3:30, if you wouldn't mind joining us'. Gooch just stretches. 'Ah, we've a few minutes yet'. "It was like he hit the snooze button. Back asleep for five minutes. Rolled out of bed. Hit 1-5 that day."
The night before a final, Galvin said Cooper used to relax by singing pop songs and, more often than not, getting the lyrics all wrong:
GALVIN: "Gooch would throw out a song there. He'd do a bit of Barr na Sráide or some Green Day. "He used to have a problem with 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams'. He'd come out of the bathroom and be brushing his teeth and he'd be going, 'On the Boulevard... ' but he'd get the words wrong. "I'd be saying, 'Gooch, it's We walk these empty streets on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams'. COOPER [interrupting]: "For f**k sake Paul, this is supposed to be private!" GALVIN: "Gooch would go 'We walked in Boulevards, on the... " "I'd go 'Gooch! We walk these empty streets on the Boulevard... ' and he'd go 'Alright, alright. I have it, I have it'. "Gooch would go again, 'We walked in Boulevards... '. He couldn't get it."Galvin roomed with either Cooper or Tomás 'Bull McCabe' O Sé before each of his six All-Ireland finals and credits both men's laid-back natures for helping him relax before games. As for the games themselves, that was a different matter. Jack McCaffrey "In 2013, I was only in the team and I made sure everything was absolutely perfect. I did everything I was told. I was absolutely shite and was whipped off at half-time; it was a disastrous day. "In 2015, I was actually sick in the build-up to the All-Ireland. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat but I was grand. I still got subbed off now but I was fine. I was a bit better than I was in 2013."
"The first year was surreal," says McCaffrey. "You were going out to mark yer man, shaking his hand and thinking 'Is this real? Am I really standing beside these guys?'"
The half back, who is currently on leave from inter-county duty, falls back on a set routine that has now served him well ever since 2013.
"I have the same breakfast before a game. I listen to the same music on the bus as we are heading in. I actually have geographical landmarks, where I now to click to the next song on the iPod. "When you get to the dressing room, you're straight out to watch whatever game is on before. In to play a bit of keepie-uppies. Then you go out; same place for the team photo. The [superstitions] kind of creep in but they do relax you before a game."It might be a few years before any of the current Mayo or Dublin players admit to singing pop songs the night before the All-Ireland final, but keep an eye out for the pre-match superstitions and quirky routines. Will it be Mayo (or the Dubs) 4 Sam? Wooly, Paul Galvin and Conán Doherty preview Saturday’s All-Ireland final replay.
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