After years in which the queue for the Galway treatment table resembled a match-day traffic jam in Salthill, the Tribesmen look to have a healthy injury profile for a change.
The lesser spotted wrecking ball Damien Comer is back in action and made a typically explosive impact in the second half of the Connacht final.
Shane Walsh is looking as slick as ever. Cillian McDaid didn't sustain any significant damage from the injury picked up late on in the loss to Roscommon and started in the all-too-easy win over Kildare.
But they do have absentees, all the same.
In the past, teams have lost players to the beaches of the Gold Coast in Australia - even in cases where there's a perfectly good one in nearby Tramore. Numerous teams have lost players to Australian Rules. The Dubs lost Kevin Moran to Manchester United and Jack McCaffrey to charity work in Africa. Of late, some teams have lost players to NFL kicking combines.
But a new one for Galway this summer, who have lost a player to Casa Amor.
Viewers on Virgin will be able to watch Galway full-back Seán Fitzgerald on Love Island over the coming months, assuredly the first time a starting player in an All-Ireland final has appeared on a British reality TV show.
Rob Finnerty had known Fitzgerald's turn as a reality star was a possibility from a few months' back though only found out for certain when the entire squad were informed by management.
"I didn't know for certain that he was going until he told Padraic [Joyce] and they announced it to the whole panel." Finnerty tells RTÉ Sport.
"But I knew there was a chance of him going for a while before. I would have had a few conversations with him and he mentioned he was chatting to them [the producers] and that it was on the cards.
"They announced it together. He [Fitzgerald] was there and they [management] said it.
"Everyone was happy enough for him. It's a decision he's made. We'll be watching him and we're excited to see how he gets on. Fair play to him, it's something he wanted to do."
Fitzgerald, a graduate from Galway's All-Ireland Under-20 winning side in 2020, has been a key part of the senior side for several seasons now, featuring at full-back throughout the run to the 2024 All-Ireland final.
He started three league games in 2026 and in the Connacht semi-final victory over Leitrim, though he was not included in the squad for the provincial decider.
"When Fitzy was leaving, they [the management] were all wishing him all the best," says Finnerty. "They know Seán for years and he's been a massive part of our panel. They really want what's best for him as a person before as a footballer."
Finnerty is one Galway player who's been close to an ever present - with the sad exception, alas, of the 2024 All-Ireland final where he only lasted 10 minutes through injury.
The Salthill inside forward already has an All-Star from the '24 season. But in the past year and a half, with Walsh and Comer often reduced to a watching brief, Finnerty has attained an even greater centrality.
This was never more evident than in this year's league campaign, when his shooting was indispensable in maintaining Galway's status in the top tier, with a particularly stellar performance against Dublin in the final round.
After a relatively quiet showing in the Connacht final, he struck 1-09 in a Man of the Match display against Kildare, the standout score being a two-pointer after a deft dummy-solo.
Finnerty has kicked six two-pointers in 2026 in a Galway side with huge capability in that department. He has plenty to say on the advent of the two-pointer, which has added a new dimension to Gaelic football since its arrival a year and a half ago.
"They probably would have been shots I already would have been able to hit but wasn't encouraged to take on as much," the Galway attacker explains.
"They would have been a lot of kicks that you would have been used to taking before training or in less serious games.
"They're tough kicks and when they're only worth one point, you're kind of thinking what is the actual logic around taking them on?
"When that rule changed, there was just a huge shift in mindset around saying, 'well, I'm allowed take this shot on now and I'm encouraged to take this shot now.'
"It's the same with a lot of other guys as well. Now, we're kind of being enticed to do it. And it makes it a great spectacle."
Like any change, there have been teething problems and a period of adjustment.
Finnerty freely admits that a compulsion to try two-pointers has cost Galway games in the past, notably the group stage game in Derry last season where they came perilously close to exiting the championship.
Chasing the game, the westerners blazed a series of two-point efforts wide and looked doomed until Matthew Tierney's rather fortuitous punched goal in the final minute rescued a draw.
"Sometimes when you're going out in the second half and you've a big breeze at your back, you fall in love with the idea that you're going to go out here and kick a rake of twos.
"If you're going out with that intention and you set up to do that, you become very easy to defend. It's very easy to mark five or six lads around the arc when you're never looking to pop a ball inside. And teams are going to push out on you.
"That Derry game was one. We didn't vary our play at all. We didn't pop balls inside and we took a lot of what I'd call low-percentage two-point shots when we were well outside the arc and there's pressure on shots."
Changing your approach in-game can be tricky, particularly in a match as frantic as that.
"It's very hard sometimes in game to notice these things. It's only afterwards when you see the data and the video that you realise that we kicked that game away ourselves.
"But it's something we've definitely gotten better at it this year and we're conscious of it now. Like anything new, you kind of have to learn the lessons of it.
"A lot of it would be around shot selection. It's a long shot, it's a long kick. It's not one you want to be snatching at.
"It's a kick you want to be able to settle yourself or ideally take a play and then be able to strike it. As a team, we've done a lot of work around that and how you can maybe manufacture them chances where you're not striking the ball under pressure."
Galway have rebounded quickly after their five-in-a-row tilt in Connacht was scuppered at the death in Hyde Park. (They can take inspiration that their last All-Ireland title in 2001 was claimed after Roscommon had deposed them in Connacht).
The 2026 Connacht final will probably go down as a classic though for Galway, the focus has been ironing out the flaws, in particular a faulty kickout press.
"The kickout press and our own kickouts weren't at the level," says Finnerty. "The stats will tell you that.
"They (Roscommon) won a huge amount of theirs [kickouts] and actually did serious damage off them. They didn't just win them, they actually scored off them - which was disappointing.
"We just really weren't on it on the day. The communication wasn't there, the positioning wasn't there. Even when we swapped up to man-to-man, it wasn't at the level it should have been at.
"When you have way less primary possession than a team, you're going to have way less of a chance of beating them.
"And we were still so close to winning that game even having lost so many kickouts."
Despite good injury news elsewhere, last season's Young Footballer of the Year nominee Matthew Thompson did pick up an ankle injury during J1 in Berkeley.
"He's back in the country. He's in good spirits, he enjoyed his time in the States. He's rehabbing his injury. He's my clubmate so as long as he's back playing football in the next year, I'm happy out."
Watch a hurling final double-header, Carlow v Laois in the Joe McDonagh Cup (3.45pm) and Dublin v Galway in the Leinster Hurling Championship (6pm), on Saturday from 3.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app and listen to Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch Cork v Limerick in the Munster Hurling Championship final on Sunday from 1.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app and listen to Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
