Aaron Branagan admitted the message in the Kilcoo huddle before extra-time at Croke Park was simple: "This is what we do, it's our time".
Self-belief has never been a problem for this tireless group who simply refused to be beaten and conjured an 81st minute winning Jerome Johnston goal to seal a 2-8 to 0-13 All-Ireland final triumph after extra-time.
Before that, they'd only led briefly in the entire game but came good when it truly counted to land their maiden title.
Defender Branagan said: "When it went to extra-time, and I know we came very close to being beaten, but we trained so hard and Mickey Moran has taken training to another level, so we knew we had it in us.
"Every night you go training you know you are having no dinner tonight. You know you are training so hard. There is a psychological element to that because you know there is nobody who is worked any harder and that plays in your head.
"And we said that in the huddle, before extra-time, 'This is what we do, it's our time'. In training, we always finish with really hard running so we know there is always that wee bit left in the tank."
Branagan and his four brothers - Niall, Daryl, Eugene and Aidan - all contributed to the landmark triumph, helping them to erase the pain of the 2020 final loss to Corofin.
But it's the Johnston brothers - Shealin, Ryan and Jerome - who conjured the magical match-winning moment. It was Shealin that played in the ball to Ryan and when his initial shot in the first minute of stoppage time at the end of extra-time was blocked, it fell kindly to Jerome to bury.
It was some turnaround having trailed by 0-9 to 0-2 earlier in normal time after a terrible start.
Branagan admitted nerves probably affected them.
He said: "When you are hearing it all week, 'Ah you will definitely win it', that seeps into you. And it is the worst thing you can hear."
It was impossible to avoid final talk around Kilcoo, a football mad rural village in south Down.
Branagan, who quit alcohol six years ago to focus on football, said: "I run the gym and people in Kilcoo are completely unwise, I am not joking you. They talk about football more than me, saying things like, 'I am not going to class this week, I'm just too nervous'. Or grown men telling you they hadn't had their dinner in a few nights through nerves."
Branagan admitted that 'tears came to my eyes straight away' when they won it. Manager Mickey Moran looked emotional too when coaxed up to the podium by joint-captain Conor Laverty to lift the Andy Merrigan Cup.
After losing previous All-Ireland finals with Kilcoo, Slaughtneil and Mayo, this could have been Moran's last opportunity. And Kilcoo's.
Selector Conleith Gilligan said: "There's no guarantee you'll ever get back to another final. You don't know what's coming next. Players fall away. You just want to try to get it when it's there. If this hadn't worked out, it's very hard to say whether you'd ever get back again."
Robbie Brennan admitted he thought Kilmacud Crokes had their third AIB All-Ireland club title in the bag.
The Crokes boss was proud of his team's hard graft in extra-time with subs Callum Pearson and Cian O'Connor nudging them two points clear with time almost up. Then Johnston struck for Kilcoo.
Brennan said: "I think if Craig Dias had scored an earlier goal chance to put us 1-8 to 0-2 up, I think that probably would have won the game, to be honest. Having said that, at 0-8 to 0-2 up at half-time, I was pretty pleased and comfortable and happy where we were at, and being honest in injury-time of extra-time, I thought we had it.
"I was looking at the clock and I was positive but as soon as I saw the ball going back into the middle of the field I had a bit of a panic moment. You could sense something was going to play out and obviously it did."
