If you look closely, you can actually pinpoint the exact moment his heart breaks in two.
Colm Boyle ran himself to a standstill on Sunday.
Up and down MacHale Park he legged himself, crashing into maroon jerseys, charging into the fray time and time again.
On The GAA Hour live show last year in Westport, Mickey Conroy told a story that summed up the character of Colm Boyle as a competitor. The amount of training he was doing outside of collective sessions, the sort of training he was doing and the hounding of team mates like Conroy to join him was relentless, rain, hail or snow.
In the 74th minute of the game in Castlebar, he was the one left tracking the deep run of Johnny Heaney.
A brilliant tactical switch by Kevin Walsh saw Declan Kyne replaced by Eamon Branigan and Johnny Heaney move back into the sweeper position which gave Galway much more attacking emphasis late on and it was Heaney who came bombing up the field untracked for the crucial killer blow.
Colm Boyle was the one who tried to follow the run but Heaney burst away from him as quick hands set him loose on David Clarke.
Once he was in that position with Keith Higgins initially rooted to the spot and too late to affect his shot, Colm Boyle knew the damage was imminent.
And one ferocious strike later, Galway were sailing through to the Connacht semi-final. Colm Boyle knew it was coming.
It was a well-taken goal to finish off a well-worked move. A classic kick and pop off to open up even the meanest of defences but the Galway management deserve credit for putting Johnny Heaney into that position in the first place.
They’ve been listening to cries about their defensive set-up all year but with one great attacking switch, they knocked the second best team in Ireland out of the Connacht championship yet again.
Johnny Heaney with a cracker of a goal! pic.twitter.com/lblrvyMg6K
— The GAA (@officialgaa) May 13, 2018
