Mayo might be used to reaching All-Ireland football finals - and losing them - but back in 1989, getting to the third week of September was something that had not been done for a long time.
In fact, they had not reached the All-Ireland final since the last time they had won it in 1951.
As the county prepares for another semi-final this Sunday against Dublin, we wanted to look at the '89 championship from a Mayo perspective on Off The Ball tonight and were joined by two of the main protagonists from that year's team: Liam McHale and Anthony Finnerty.
Touching on the years, before John O'Mahony took over in 1987, McHale pointed out some of the changes that were being made under his predecessor Liam O'Neill as progress returned to Mayo.
"Liam O'Neill brought me in for his last year and one of the first things he did was hand me a tape, and the name of the tape was 'Bigger, Faster, Stronger'. At the time, I was about 13 stone and 6 foot 5 so I was two stone at least too light for senior inter-county football and he told me to study that tape and take the exercises out of that tape and start working on my body, so that's how professional and advanced Liam was," said McHale.
Finnerty felt that the mix was good in 1989 and McHale recalled how there was a confidence that Mayo were among the Top 5 teams in the country that year, having won Connacht in '88 and then defended their provincial crown.
Both men reminisced about the weeks leading up to the All-Ireland final against Cork, who had lost the two previous finals, and Finnerty remembered a "huge outpouring of hype" in Mayo, which he saw as "goodwill" and the "bond" between the supporters and the team.
Finnerty, who scored a goal in the defeat, also talked about the regrets he feels about a missed chance in that Croke Park decider.
"I probably think about it every day of my life and I probably will continue to think about it. It's a what if and I don't think I'd have missed it if I realised it would be as long a wait for an All-Ireland. I certainly would have done something different if I had a second chance," he said.
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