Before the drawn final, we catalogued the spicy modern history of the Dublin-Mayo fixture. In the fortnight since, the pair have written a new chapter in this story - not just on the field, but off the field as well.
Rows in the tunnel, ripped jerseys, endless arguments over cynicism, accusations that one side is trying to influence the referee... all that and Diarmuid Connolly and Lee Keegan have managed to become the two most talked about Gaelic footballers in the country.
We're entering full-blown grudge match territory here. A grudge match to rival these classic duels from down the years.
Meath v Cork : 1987-90
Both Kerry and Dublin disappeared from the All-Ireland series at roughly the same time in the late 80s. As the two great powers went into decline, their main provincial rivals simply took their seat at the top table.
The two sides dominated football for four years between '87 and '90. They met in three All-Ireland finals, one of which went to a replay, and all of which were physical, bad-tempered affairs. Fairly or unfairly, the purists tend to revile the era as a low point in the history of Gaelic football.
Meath pulled away and won handsomely in the '87 final. The 1988 series was far more controversial. With Cork leading by a point at the death, David Beggy flung himself on the turf like a tragic heroine. The ref bought it and Stafford slotted the easy free.
Rather like the Clare hurlers after the drawn 1998 Munster Final, Meath believed they'd been bullied in the first match. They resolved they were going to be the ones doing the bullying the next day. Liam Hayes, Meath midfielder and chief chronicler of the era, remembers the team meeting.
We had a team meeting the following morning. And most of the players were hungover, most of the players were beaten up. We were in a bad state. But we made up our minds that we were going to win the replay. And in addition to that, we were going to extract some revenge on Cork.
Gerry McEntee was sent off for throwing a punch in the first half. At one point in the 2nd half, Mick Lyons rugby tackled Teddy McCarthy and clung onto his leg until he made sure he wasn't going any further. Meath won by a point.
The record suggests that being reduced to 14 was evidently an advantage in the Cork-Meath rivalry. No doubt it offered proof that you were bringing more ferocity to bear on the occasion and would triumph in the end.
While Gerry McEntee got the line and Meath still won in '88, in 1990 it was Colm O'Neill who was banished for throwing a box at Mick Lyons. The Meath full-back had tough-minded Gaels everywhere swooning after he refused to hit the deck and play up the fact he'd been hit. Cork won a dismal match 0-11 to 0-9 with Kildare lads Larry Tomkins and Shea Fahey accounting for 0-8 of that total.
Galway v Tipperary : 1987-93
It was tempting to stick 'AN Other v Tipperary' into this list.
Excluding Wexford and Dublin, Tipperary shares a border with every serious hurling county. They're sucked into a lot of grudge matches.
At the same time as Meath and Cork were dividing football titles among themselves, hurling was convulsed by a similar rivalry between Galway and Tipp.
Richie Stakelum crowed that "the famine was over!" after Tipp won the 1987 Munster championship, their first in sixteen years. They had to wait a while longer at All-Ireland level as Galway had their measure in both '87 and '88. When Galway again beat Tipperary in a thrilling League final on May Day 1989 in front of a huge crowd, it felt like the hoodoo was going to last forever. But Tipp would finally overcome the westerners in deeply controversial circumstances that summer.
At Galway hurling matches nowadays, there's one fan who walks around in a jersey with 'Keady 89' emblazoned on the back. A Ballinasloe rock band have even released a song called 'The Tony Keady Affair'.
The 1988 Hurler of the Year played no part in Galway's unsuccessful three-in-a-row drive. He was spotted playing in a random club match for Laois in New York that summer. The practice was technically illegal but was more or less endemic. It was hardly ever punished. Amid whispers of Tipp skulduggery, a very public exception was made for Keady. He was banned for 12 months.
Despite the innuendo over Tipp's role in the suspension - and it was the Tipperary hurling club in New York that first ratted him out - the county's representatives actually voted in Keady's favour at that dramatic appeal hearing on the week of the game. Sickeningly, the other Connacht counties voted to uphold the suspension and his appeal was defeated by 22-18.
All this before we get to referee John Denton's performance. Galway finished with 13 win and had no less than three penalties awarded against them. In marked contrast, Tipp's John Leahy was somehow allowed stay on the pitch after pulling wildly across Pete Finnerty's body in the first half.
Speaking to Balls.ie in advance of this year's Tipp-Galway match, Finnerty was still angry at Denton's refereeing performance.
He (Denton) didn't even just give the 50-50s to Tipperary, he gave them the 30-70s. And I'm not sorry to say it about John because he robbed us of 'three in a row' as far as I'm concerned.
While Tipp's 1989 success was accompanied by controversy and sore feelings, there can be no quarrel with the 1991 All-Ireland title.
A few Galway veterans (Hayes, Sylvie...) had stepped off the stage and many of those who remained were getting on a bit anyway. Tipperary demolished Galway by 10 points in the 1991 All-Ireland semi-final, progressing to beat KK in the final.
In the middle of it all, they somehow allowed an allegedly mediocre Cork side steal in for an All-Ireland victory. The modern-day Galway team get a bad rap for throwing away matches they should win, but the 1990 final loss remains nearly inexplicable.
The final act occurred in 1993 when a youthful Galway side stunned Tipp in the All-Ireland semi-final. It was their last meeting until the turn of the century.
Clare v Tipperary : 1993-2001
Drama-loving yarn spinner Ger Loughnane devoted the best part of his managerial career to punishing Tipperary for various perceived arrogant slights, real or imagined.
The most famous of these arrived in the 1993 Munster Final bloodbath. With Tipp beating Clare out the gate and the match petering away to its inevitable conclusion, Nicky English stroked over a very handy point, after which he turned around a flashed a knowing smile at one of his teammates.
The RTE cameras had zoomed in on Nicky at the precise moment he turned around.
In subsequent years, Loughnane built this innocuous incident up to such an extent that one might be forgiven for thinking that English had spat on the Clare jersey, labelled Marty Morrisey a yank, and gone on radio to announce that Lisdoonvarna was zero craic.
By 1997-98, Clare had miraculously managed to transform themselves from lovable underdogs to the new oppressor - the team everybody loved to hate.
All nouveau riche outfits find this out sooner or later, as any Ulster Gaelic football fan will confirm. Anthony Daly summed up the mentality that Clare carried into 1997 and 1998.
"We did have a bit of a siege mentality that everyone liked us coming on the scene in '95. That we were a new team coming to the top table. And then we won Munster and the All-Ireland final again in '97. And we did have the feeling that a lot of the established counties wanted us to go away again and go back to the ould traditional music"
Tipperary represented the face of the establishment. The teams loved to hate one another. Prior to the 1999 League final against Galway, some Tipperary fans turned up with a map of Ireland with county Clare lanced off. The picture was accompanied by the message 'A Perfect Island'.
Tyrone v Derry : 1884 - Present
Dungiven's most famous barrister has done much to bring this rivalry to national attention. Brolly's gleeful baiting of the 'Tyrone bastards' has been a constant background theme since he was first invited onto the Sunday Game panel at the turn of the century.
The internet used to house a video in which Brolly nattered with Michael Lyster off-air about "Tyrone bastards" and quoted his brother as calling them "savages".
While there's no trace of this video on the internet today, Brolly has made unsubtle reference to it in a video that remain on youtube, namely a tribute piece to Kevin Hughes for his retirement do.
After ramming home a goal in a one-sided win over Tyrone in the 1997 Ulster championship match, he blew kisses in the direction of Tyrone fans. He didn't reserve this celebration for meetings with Tyrone, but he seemed to derive an extra-special glee from this display.
Moving away from Brolly for a moment, journalist Chris McCann wrote an article which was published on Balls.ie about the Derry-Tyrone rivalry.
Derry and Tyrone were knocking seven shades out of each other back when Frank McGuigan and Dermot McNicholl were winning Allstars in the 1980s (my football memory doesn’t stretch any further back) and it’s fair to say that familiarity has continued to breed contempt rather than affection between the two counties....
Whatever the reasons for the enmity, the fact remains that there isn’t another item on the sporting calendar that makes me lose the run of myself the way Derry v Tyrone does.... Derry versus Tyrone speaks to the very essence of team sport i.e. showing those bollixes from down the road who’s boss.
Tipperary v Kilkenny : 2009 - Present
Yes, Tipp again. Attending the Kilkenny-Galway 2015 All-Ireland final, one was struck by the relative diffidence of the Kilkenny supporters.
Trudging out of the Canal End, Balls heard one exchange between a middle-aged Kilkenny supporter and another very elderly supporter, neither of whom seemed delirious following the All-Ireland win.
"Well Ned, another one chalked off!", said the middle aged fan.
Balls was informed by one knowing supporter that Kilkenny fans would only get energised for a Tipperary final.
Likewise, this year, conversations with Tipp supporters revealed they were happy Kilkenny had got past Waterford. If they were going to win the All-Ireland, they wanted to beat KK in the final.
The rivalry has seen a few flash-points. The 2013 qualifier had plenty of needle and there were allegations that Lar Corbett was jeered when he left the field when obviously badly injured.
We regard ex-Kilkenny corner back John Mulhall as very much the bard of the Kilkenny-Tipperary rivalry.
Here's his masterpiece after the 2011 All-Ireland final victory.
