IT was a pleasant surprise that Conor Mortimer turned up to the Mayo press night after his grandad passed away. They were close and he was still clearly hurting. Suddenly he didn't want the cameras and hollow attention. In the days after the death he'd been training alone. Football had become a way out rather than a way up. It was a surprise, too, that he sat there responding to predictable questions with unsure answers. "Kerry will be tough." "Mayo will win if they perform." "There's better to come from us this year."

Soundbytes muttered a thousand times but here and now without belief. He was nervous and people like him didn't used to get nervous.

A couple of years back, you see, Conor Mortimer was a superstar. In Mayo's eyes at least. His football made him stand out as much as his hair, and he was untouchable on and off the pitch. In fact he was so big a name he could get away with what others wouldn't dream of. Before the 2004 All Ireland final he went awol from a team meeting while in the build up to that game he revelled in the fact that his face was plastered on billboards around the place. But when eyes were really on him, he hid.

Only once in the 2004 final against Kerry did he do what was supposed to come easy.

There was no finger-pointing to the crowd, no masses carrying a king high from the field, just one measly point.

He was even replaced by Andy Moran. Him, substituted, because his game wasn't good enough when it really mattered. Suddenly he was a nobody, walking from the field alone. When word got out of his antics before the game, the hundreds that had helped build the ego by coming to McHale Park for mere training sessions weren't so adoring. Conor Mortimer was a loser. In Mayo's eyes at least.

"It was crazy down here in 2004 and we, as a team, were a big part of that. Most teams who get to an All Ireland final separate themselves totally, they train on their own, supporters do their bit and so on and so forth. But we were all excited along with the fans.

Even before the game we were thinking of the craic we were going to have after it and the fact we were only a couple of weeks away from being All Ireland champions.

I think because we got to a final everyone thought it had to be our turn and we'd win it purely because we were there.

"Maybe we thought like that as well because it was hard not to get caught up in the general attitude and feeling around the place. But after it [the 1-20 to 2-9 defeat to Kerry] I just couldn't stay around. I didn't want to be here or to know about it. I went to New York and Miami for three or four months.

There was a lot of bad blood and we were going to get a lot of grief off people around Mayo. There's no point in being in a final if you don't win it because the reality is that no one ever remembers a loser."

Looking back, did your attitude back then affect your performance?

"I didn't think there was a problem with what I did in the lead up to the final. We are amateur and when you get offered money to do things like I was with the Club Energise billboards, you are going to do these things. If you get ?500 to take a picture you are going to go and take that picture, regardless of what game is coming up. So I think I did what anyone else would have done. I was no different and I don't know why there was such a deal made over that."

And what about the other incident?

"What incident?"

The one that saw you miss a team meeting?

"Ah, I was too young."

So have you matured?

"I suppose I have. I think as you get older, you tend to do quieter things. I wouldn't be mad about going to a night club after a game now. There's no point putting yourself out there after playing a game.

You'll end up being wounded.

Even after the Dublin game, we'd nothing done. With college as well, you've a responsibility to yourself and others.

You are under constant expectation be it with college or football. Occasionally everyone is going to go for a night out, that's part and parcel of life. But I don't think I was ever that immature either. If I had to go and see someone the night before an All Ireland final and if I feel it's right to do it, I'll do it. It's nothing to do with my performance come a game.

"But my frame of mind is different now and I'm more relaxed. Maybe that's maturity. Suddenly an All Ireland final is a game I want to be involved in for the right reasons. I'm not as young and you deal with the pressure much better now. And as I say, a lot of that has come through responsibility and through college."

He wasn't the only blond on a beach in Miami and this year he hasn't been the only athlete around the place because of a sports scholarship to DCU. In the largest high-performance gym in the country he was surrounded by the Irish Olympic rowing team, by Derval O'Rourke and many of Ireland's other elite athletes, by Bohemian football club. On his Sigerson Cup team there was Bryan Cullen, Kevin O'Reilly, Stephen Cluxton, Paul Casey.

He was no longer the only recognisable name around.

Now he was just another, striving to get to the top. All of that has made him a better footballer.

He's again been Mayo's top scorer this year, averaging six points a game. The last time he was missing, the National League semi-final loss to Galway, Mayo only scored 1-6 in total. But he's not just been special in terms of Mayo. Every time he's taken to a championship pitch this year he's been his own county's top scorer and nobody on the other side has managed to kick more points. In the Connacht final he scored four points. Padraic Joyce only managed three while Sean Armstrong, Michael Meehan and Matthew Clancy could only manage his tally between them. In the two games against Laois he kicked 12 points. Ross Munnelly scored seven, Brian McDonald two, while Billy Sheehan didn't score at all. And for all the talk of Alan Brogan's brilliant performance in the semi-final he only notched four points, one less than Mortimer. He's been marked by quality as well, but has put a serious dent into the All Star ambitions of Paul Griffin and the reputation of Joe Higgins.

"Getting away and being in Dublin has made a big difference. It was good craic and I trained well in the gym and in the pool. I don't think it changes you greatly as a player but the facilities we have in DCU help you along physically."

And mentally, how have recent weeks left you feeling after losing your grandad?

"It's not easy. It takes it toll but that's natural. The last few days have been tough and it's been hard on the family. I went in to see him on Saturday morning and he was a little bit ill, I went off training, came back a couple of hours later and that was it. He's gone. And he was a big part of my life, Trevor's life, Kenneth's life, my dad's life. We were all close-knit. But it gives us [him and Trevor] more of a drive to go on and win this All Ireland to be honest.

But has it been hard to concentrate on football after all of this?

"Not at all. I went out yesterday after the funeral for a kick around, for some time with myself and it's the only place you can be away from it all and alone with your thoughts. It would mean so much more to win it now. If we won when he was here it would still be for him to a large extent because of all the help he gave us and all the time he took to help us out with football and bring us here and there, to games and to training. Ever since myself and Trevor were involved underage with the Mayo set up, from the time we were 14 or 15, he was always there to help us out. But now we'd be trying 10 per cent more to win for him so he can be smiling down on top of us.

"But it was strange the way it happened. The couple of weeks before the Dublin game, you'd get there to see him and he'd be asleep and you wouldn't get much of a chat with him but the day after the Dublin game he was awake. At least he got to see probably one of the best games Mayo have ever been involved in, as he put it himself. He'll have enjoyed that one. It's unfortunate he didn't get to see this All Ireland final but I think he knew if he was going, the night before the All Ireland final would have made things a little bit more difficult. "But you need to use all this to your advantage now.

Our granny as well will be able to go to the final and she'll be shouting us on but it will be a tough week or two for the family but we'll pull together."

Mortimer returns to rehearsed talk about the senior names on the team being a big part of the direction the side has taken ("They are big characters, they are big names. But if we are sitting in a dressing room and I have something to say, everyone is going to sit there and listen as well. It's like that across the team. Michael Conroy is the youngest there and if he has something to say, we listen as well."); about how Mickey Moran and John Morrison are thinking like the players in that nothing is won yet ("Until we win something there's no point in comparing managers because they are all in the same boat as it stands. John Maughan never won an All Ireland with us and nothing has changed since he left as it stands at the minute."); about how they flopped the last time against Kerry in an All Ireland final but how they are better prepared this time around ("I think we've gone about it a little differently. I, personally, don't be in Mayo a whole lot anymore. Before, you'd be looking to get in there and have people talking to you about football and about you. This year is a lot more low key. That's very different from the way Dublin approached the semi-final and from how Kerry will be talked about ahead of the final.").

But it's just talk. What strikes you is that the assurance is no longer coming from Mortimer. It's from the other chairs around the room that confidence exudes. David Brady sits tall, hammering home how meaningless certain accolades are. How he's already told the rest of the team to forget about them and focus on the real prize.

"Player of the Year, top scorer of the championship, All Stars, no one else has to worry about all that. No one else should have it on their minds. But we pointed out that the real prize was unclaimed and we said it to everyone because certain guys needed to hear it." It's clear exactly who needed to hear it.

But before you can ask Mortimer about the remarks, there are those around tapping watches for his benefit.

Either our time is up or his time has come. Or maybe both.

emackenna@tribune. ie