It was halftime of the NFC Championship game, Jan. 20, 1991, and and this was the moment the Giants — 30 minutes from turning a 6-6 halftime score into a 15-13 win and a berth in Super Bowl XXV — vowed to separate the men from the 49ers.
There had been bad blood between the teams, dating back to a postgame melee following a 7-3 49ers Monday night victory a month earlier in which feisty placekicker Matt Bahr, noticing Phil Simms engulfed by angry 49ers, rushed in to help protect his quarterback.
“I remember the guys were saying if they had a chance to initiate some pain on the 49er players, they were gonna do it,” Leonard Marshall recalled. “’If you get a chance to stroke one of them, stroke ’em, and let ’em know it.’ ”
That essentially had been the message from coach Bill Parcells and defensive coordinator Bill Belichick.
“The first time they get the ball,” Parcells told his defensive players, “we gotta knock this Montana down right away.”
With the 49ers leading 13-9 and a little more than nine minutes standing between San Francisco and a third straight Super Bowl, Marshall’s predatory instincts were directed at Joe Montana. Marshall beat left tackle Bubba Paris with a swim move, then was cut by fullback Tom Rathman. Marshall began crawling toward Montana, who had to step up to avoid a charging Lawrence Taylor.
“[Montana] threw his left hand forward to tell [Jerry] Rice to keep running,” Marshall recalled.
Unfortunately for Montana, Marshall had gotten to his feet, and pulverized him with a violent blindside hit.
“By the time he extended his left hand, “ Marshall said, “it was ‘Lights Out Irene.’”
And the start of the Steve Young Era, because it was Lights Out on the Montana Era in San Francisco.
“He had a big damn chunk of grass in his facemask,” Marshall said. And a bruised sternum and fractured little finger on his throwing hand.
“I could hear him wincing,” Marshall said, “ ‘Like, ‘Ohh, I’m in a lot of pain,’ almost like he couldn’t breathe.”
Still trailing 13-9, Parcells gave upback Gary Reasons the green light to try a fake punt.
“Bill,” Reasons had told Parcells, “this is there. What are we waiting for?”
The right moment was fourth-and-2 at the Giants’ 46.
“They only had 10 guys on the field,” Parcells said. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. I think we would still have been good with it.”
Reasons rumbled 30 yards and Bahr closed the deficit with a 38-yard yard field goal.
Then Erik Howard forced a Roger Craig fumble that Taylor recovered at the Giants’ 43 with 2:36 left.
Bahr, who had made four of five field goals to that point, began getting ready on the sideline. And soon he was summoned for the 42-yard field goal that would send the Giants to Tampa and Super Bowl XXV the next week, or send them home on the last play of the game.
The 49ers called timeout.
“I vividly remember taking a deep breath, saying, ‘Oh thank goodness,’” Bahr recalled. “Because at that point, you can make sure of all the details you don’t want to be thinking about … making sure you’re at the exact distance … if you’re at the right distance, nine times out of 10 [longsnapper Steve] DeOssie was gonna put it laces up for [holder] Jeff Hostetler so I could make sure my plant foot wasn’t on any of those seams.”
On the sidelines, unbeknownst to Bahr, his teammates knelt down, holding hands in prayer.
“If I had seen that,” Bahr said, “I think I might have gone a little insane. That would have thrown me off.”
Parcells recalled Bahr kicking with his chinstrapped helmet on in practice even as everyone else wore sweats.
“Every kick I ever practice is to win the Super Bowl,” Bahr said. “I try to tell kids, ‘Don’t put it out of your mind. Embrace the situation. Assume it’s to win the Super Bowl, assume it’s to win the championship game.’ That way, when you get to that game, you’ve done it a thousand times.”
The last thing Bahr wanted to do was cheat himself or his teammates.
“Hit the ball and follow through,” he reminded himself. “Take a swing at it.”
So he did.
“As soon as I hit the ball, I hit it pretty good,” Bahr said. “Then it was ‘Whoops. I might have hit it too good.’ I might have overcooked it.’”
He did not.
“As it turns out, it was inside the left upright about a yard,” Bahr said. “It was close enough that I had to stare it through. “
In the euphoric locker room, Parcells found Bahr and handed him the game ball. Bahr remembers Parcells saying, “Here you are, kid. I don’t do this a lot.’” Bahr 21 years later: “It meant the world to me.”
Parcells 21 years later: “That was the kick in my career. You have to have the guy who can make that kick kicking for you.”
Parcells remembers the game as “one of the top two or three games I ever coached in” because of the array of talent on both sides.
The Giants had been fueled by reports the 49ers already had set up hotel headquarters in Tampa.
“We weren’t an afterthought in New York,” Parcells said, “but we were everywhere else.”
Not when this one ended, they weren’t.
steve.serby@nypost.com