McConville felt it best to sit at the back of the boat and limit his paddling for fear of falling overboard but as their vessel fell behind in the contest, McGeeney turned like a caged animal. "Will you ever f**cking paddle."

McConville reckoned McGeeney losing was more dangerous than the watery depths that surrounded him, paddled hard, and soon they were back near the front.

Second best was not good enough. "Kieran's brave, " Mick Galvin once said. "Ask players when they retire what they regret most and they'll say it wasn't pointing out to a teammate that they were lazy or yellow. Kieran's brave enough to tell the truth. To say things that hurt people.

He despises people who don't get to the same level as him."

They used to say his hero, Michael Jordan, practised harder than anyone else in basketball. Well McGeeney practised harder than anyone else in Gaelic football. He had to because he wasn't like Seamus Moynihan, there were no scouts looking at him from a young age saying he would be great. In fact there were times when he struggled. Imagine it, God used to have off days. Before the Ulster semi-final of 1993 Brian McEniff told his Donegal players McGeeney was a good man-marker but a poor kicker of the ball. He told them to let McGeeney go long with a foot pass because it would end up in the stands.

McEniff was right that day, yet within a decade McGeeney had practised hard and become the best restarter in Gaelic football. This attitude left him as a Roy Keane-type character striving for perfection and a discipline that earned him the respect of players throughout the country.

This summer alone Shane Ryan and Eamonn O'Hara alluded to his influence after their respective provincial triumphs. Ciaran McManus says he the greatest he's ever seen. Donal Og Cusack worships at his alter and McGeeney taking Armagh to an All Ireland in 2002 was the catalyst for the Cork hurlers' strike. In fact not since Larry Tompkins has there been a footballer that has commanded the respect of all others and it's hard to know when there will be another. McGeeney was not the best footballer of his generation but he was clearly the most influential.

But it is those in his club and county that respect him most because they had the experience of practising with him. McConville claimed he would have gone through his own brothers to win club games for Crossmaglen. Yet when he came up against McGeeney and Na Fianna in the All Ireland final of 2000, he said it was his hardest moment, not so much out of fear but out of respect.

McGeeney's manager at Na Fianna in 2002 was Mick Bohan and before Dublin played Armagh in the All Ireland semi-final he combed his county panel, seeing Na Fianna giants littering the page.

There was Dessie Farrell, Senan Connell and Jason Sherlock, and he soon concluded that Dublin would make the final. Then he thought again. "Christ, I can't see McGeeney tolerating losing a third All Ireland semifinal." He didn't and won the All Ireland that year.

Henry Ford, McGeeney recalled, once said had he to live life over again he'd make twice as many mistakes because he'd learn twice as much. Well any mistakes he made in his earlier years on the Armagh panel helped him reach a level that was unattainable to most because he was willing to become the first professional footballer.

But professionalism was an attitude, not a healthier bank balance. Only weeks after he lifted that Sam Maguire, he was presenting medals to kids in Kilcar. The club offered McGeeney good expenses but he refused, instead asking for a hotel with a gym. By the latter stages of his inter-county career he was spending 35 on fruit every two days because it helped Paula Radcliffe become great and soon the Armagh county board were allowing for fruit expenses as well as mileage.

Rumour has it he fancied management and that if John Grimley had been given the Armagh job for the coming year, he would have been on board his coaching team. But with retirement still fresh it's not the time for speculation.

Six Ulster titles, three All Stars, a Footballer of the Year award and a Holy Grail later, Geezer walks away like a gunslinger that's never known a bullet to pierce the flesh.