"Will Galway bate Mayo?" the Saw Doctors famously asked in their song Hay Wrap.
If the teams' recent history is anything to go by, the answer is: quite possibly, in more than ways than one.
A 4-16 to 0-11 hammering in the 2013 Connacht quarter-final between the sides was also notable for Galway captain Gareth Bradshaw and Niall Coleman receiving straight red cards, for off the ball strikes on Cathal Carolan and Alan Dillon respectively.
By 2014 Galway had closed the gap to seven points, and no red cards, and in Kevin Walsh's debut season in charge in 2015, Mayo won by six on the way to a provincial five in a row. Finian Hanley and Lee Keegan both saw the line for late second offences on that occasion.
Galway stunned the hosts at Castlebar in 2016 and repeated the trick last season after Keith Higgins was sent off early on for giving dangerman Damien Comer a dig in the stomach.
Things have gotten even spicier this year as Mayo sense Galway threatening their mantle as top dogs in Connacht.
Galway finished with just 12 players but still managed to win the FBD League clash in February, defenders Seán Mulkerrins and Seán Andy Ó Ceallaigh, along with the aforementioned Comer, going for an early bath.
"I think it was more the conditions," the Galway forward told RTÉ Sport.
"The game probably shouldn't have went ahead at all, really, because it was the worst I've seen a pitch for a long time. Especially because MacHale Park is usually such a lovely pitch to play on.
"But it was very, very wet, I suppose the fact that it had already got called off the week before, they were under pressure to let it go but the conditions didn't help and probably led to a few rash, dangerous tackles.
"But I don't think there was anything malicious in it, I just don't think the weather conditions really suited."
The Tribesmen made it four on the bounce against Mayo in Division 1 of the Allianz League, when another three players were dismissed - this time a straight red to Mayo's Cillian O'Connor for an elbow on Eoghan Kerin while his brother Diarmuid and Galway's Paul Conroy were shown second yellows.
Comer admits that the rivalry has become more intense in recent years but doesn't think it has crossed the line just yet.
"Ah there probably is (a bit of bad blood), but at the end of the day there were lads fighting for positions during the league and that would led to a few heated affairs," he said.
"It was probably the same on both sides, nobody was prepared to give an inch in that they wanted that jersey with the next league game in mind.
"You have to lay down a marker and make sure your manager sees something that he likes in you, and hopefully then you get picked for the championship.
"So there was probably a lot of that and lads didn't want to give an inch on the pitch. It probably led to a few things but I think it was harmless enough stuff really, it was just a bit of pushing and dragging in the heat of the moment.
"It was all good natured enough. I don't think there was anything malicious, it wasn't anything like the Meath-Mayo game you see old clips of from back in the day in Croke Park. I don't think there was any of that, it was just handbags."
Mayo manager Stephen Rochford said he didn't consider their rivals a "dirty team" but accepted Galway appeared to have a tougher edge these days.
"In the context of how the game played out in Pearse Stadium, it possibly looks like that," he said.
"I know that there's been maybe a little bit more made of it than necessary, but they have a lot of big, physical guys, but I don't see them being a particularly dirty team to be honest, or anything like that.
"But if you're going to be the team that they've set their ambitions out about, you won't be that pushover either."
Galway boss Kevin Walsh says that the increasingly physical nature of their contests is a natural result of the return to more even competition between the counties.
"I suppose if you go back three or four years ago, maybe the expectation wasn’t there at all for Galway to perform or even compete. But that’s something that has probably changed in the last two or three years, which is good for us," he said.
"Go back to when the teams were very closely together, one or two-point games, which I was in as a player myself, those games were quite physical.
"They were always going to be physical because at the end of the day you had a man to mark and hopefully you are going to walk off there and say you got the better of him.
"I think when the teams are coming a bit closer to each other in relation to expectation I think you are always going to have a high-intensity game."
Spare a thought for Cork native Conor Lane, the man in the middle for Sunday's Connacht quarter-final at MacHale Park, which is expected to be a sell-out.
"I think it will be really physical, and the referee will have a tough match," suggested RTÉ analyst Tomás Ó Sé. "It will be a right good old-fashioned battle."
Follow Mayo v Galway this Sunday via our live blog on RTÉ.ie and the News Now App, watch exclusive television coverage on RTÉ2 or listen to exclusive national radio commentary on RTÉ Radio 1.
