Not the defence of the All Ireland but Conor Gormley's desire to wear Tyrone's red hand on his heart.

This was before The Block and the medals and the All Star, of course, and way before Croke Park became a second home for the months of summer.

This was Clones, 1995, and one of those rumbling, sulphuric provincial clashes that has since become part of Tyrone's football mosaic. The tackles flew that day. Gormley can remember that. And the heat stung. It was an Ulster occasion in the old fashioned sense, a head-tohead in football's greatest border town with only the conqueror to progress.

The people came and expected a battle, and duly Tyrone and Derry faced one another like a couple of Puck goats. "It was some game, " recalls Gormley.

To add to his own interest, there were men from his club, Carrickmore, on the field and one of them, Seamus McCallen, would eventually get the line. Tyrone finished with 13 men and for long and sweltering spells they were on the ropes. But they faced into the storm and somehow survived and those minutes of football and drama have stuck with Gormley.

"We won by a point. It's the most vivid sporting memory from when I was younger. I must have been 14 or 15 at that stage and I can still feel the atmosphere in Clones.

That Derry game was a driving spark for me. I went away thinking I wanted to be part of those days and involved in a Tyrone team."

Time passes. Three or four years maybe. The chance to wear the crest edges closer.

Gormley gets a call for a minor trial but it doesn't work out. Perhaps the sure step that he now brings to football occasions still hasn't developed and for better or worse Gormley never makes the minor set-up.

Fr Gerard McAleer doesn't have many regrets, he says, but the decision to omit Gormley from the minor panel of 1998 is one of them.

That year, Fr Gerard and Mickey Harte were in charge of the Tyrone minors that captured the county's first All Ireland at that grade in 25 years. They kept a trained eye on Gormley but ultimately agreed that he wasn't up to county standard.

Had Gormley been part of the team he would have provided some symmetry to Tyrone's success as his father, Sean, was half-back on the triumphant side of 1973.

"Conor never played minor for Tyrone but he was mentioned to us as one to watch, " recalls McAleer. "In our opinion, that is Mickey and I, we didn't think he was up to it.

But Conor kept at it. We had him a few years later at under-21 when he was a very effective half-back. He was determined to play for Tyrone and you could see that. When he made it to the seniors I told him he had proved us wrong with that decision in '98. I was delighted he did. But I still regret that he doesn't have a minor All Ireland to go with the under-21, the senior, the All Star and the county championship medals."

The wall was broken down in 2001 when he became a regular on the successful Tyrone under-21 team and in the process he was beginning to find out what was required to cross the causeway to the senior set up. On the campaign trail with the under-21s he was facing players like Tommy Freeman and Conor Mortimer and to all observers the jump to the senior panel was a natural progression.

He was finding his feet with the seniors when the big day in Croke Park arrived in 2002 with Sligo salivating for a scalp. He struggled against Gerry McGowan and at halftime he was substituted.

From the sideline Gormley watched as the western ambush turned into reality.

"There have been great days since then, but my first taste of Croke Park wasn't good. That game has been mentioned a lot because we don't want to go back to days like that. We seemed to be complacent and take things for granted. I was surely disappointed after being taken off and going back up the road to Tyrone there were heads in hands for sure."

A year later the disappointment was banished for good. If Gormley had quietly and confidently contributed to Tyrone's rise in the lead up to their first ever All Ireland success, then his display in the latter stages of the final lifted him to an unequalled podium. The Block, as it is now known, is one of the most memorable, crucial, spontaneous acts of defensive heroism the big stadium has seen.

Mickey Harte later described it as an obvious case for the possibility of bi-location. Others recall Gormley emerging from thin air to deny Steven McDonnell a goal that would have won it for Armagh.

The following day, he returned to Tyrone and the endless questions of how such a thing was possible began.

"The odd fella would call me The Block these days but it was just a split second thing. I suppose it was a bit of instinct that we learned because we were always told to get back even if we're not involved in the play. Ah, it was just the right place at the right time."

In Gormley there exists many of the characteristics the present Tyrone team have come to represent. He is deceptively strong, his work ethic is immense, he can fill a number of positions and there burns in him a hunger other teams have been unable to cope with. Underpinning all of this, though, is the realisation that life stretches far beyond the powdered lines of a football field.

When Cormac McAnallen passed away, he was the one called on to fill a void that would always exist. He wore number 31 on his back and took to his new role in a way he hoped his friend would approve of.

"It probably was tough to move into Cormac's position but you had to remember the example he set. He moved to full-back against Down in an Ulster final replay and showed how it was done."

In 2004, just like two years previous, Gormley wasn't on the field when Tyrone made their championship exit. Less than 20 minutes had elapsed against a Mayo side playing fast, intelligent ball when Gormley was taken off with concussion. When he came round, Tyrone's season had slipped by.

"After all that happened in 2004 we turned things around last year. We proved some people wrong when we won the All Ireland again. It was some year, playing all those games in Croke Park after the years when we never got any games there. When Dublin scored the goal before half time in the first game, the roof was lifted. It was an unreal atmosphere and that woke us up. Then [Owen] Mulligan got the goal the second day and it changed his season and ours."

Perhaps the season-changing event occurred a little earlier. In the drawn Dublin game, Gormley started out at midfield but was switched to centre back to curtail the threat posed by Alan Brogan.

The move worked, the ship was steadied, Tyrone triumphed and Gormley remained at centre back until the end of September.

He starts in the same position today for a game that ushers in Tyrone's attempt to become the first team to win back to back titles since Cork found the elixir in 1990.

"Every year is important for us and we'll use whatever we can to push ourselves. We know we're not going to be playing football for the next 20 years, that it's only a gap in time, so you have to perform your best every game you play. It would be great to get two in a row, but it's Derry that are facing us right now and we look no further than that. We'll be missing a few players so it's up to the rest of us to step up to the plate.

This is a strong Derry side and we'll not take anything for granted."

Tyrone and Derry. It's how his obsession with the white and red jersey began. It continues today.

ULSTER SFC ROUND ONE TYRONE v DERRY Omagh, 2.15 Referee D Coldrick (Meath) Live RTE Two, 2.00 Straight up, we're going for Tyrone in this one. They may have a bagful of injuries (five in total, including Brian McGuigan's broken leg) but there are reasons aplenty to stick with the All Ireland champions today. Theirs is a panel filled with mobile and motivated players capable of slotting into Mickey Harte's football template . . . and the fact that they're without a number of key men will simply be used as additional inspiration in the minutes before they step out at Healy Park. In Ray Mulgrew, who gets his first start, they have a youngster with class and potential and he will grow with confidence as this championship moves on.

The good news for Tyrone during the week was Owen Mulligan's declaration of fitness.

Without Stephen O'Neill and McGuigan, Mulligan's attacking influence will prove vital against a tough Derry defence.

Derry, of course, might fancy their chances at Omagh. It's been 10 years since they beat Tyrone in the Ulster championship and that in itself will give them plenty of drive.

But just because they're due a win doesn't mean that's how it's going to transpire.

Derry have their own injury problems (Gerard O'Kane and Patsy Bradley are both out while Sean Marty Lockhart and Paul Cartin are only fit enough for places on the bench) and almost a third of this team . . .four in all . . . make their championship debuts today.

With the likes of Enda Muldoon and the Bradley brothers, though, they have the firepower to ensure this will be a close encounter, but here's where Tyrone's advantage lies.

They're defending an All Ireland title in front of a home crowd and if any team has the mental strength to sew two successful seasons together . . .

injuries bedamned . . . then it's Tyrone.

Derry are a durable outfit, as they showed in the league, and they should make an impression down the line. Their preparations for this opener will have intensified since the panel backed manager Paddy Crozier in his stand against the county board but Tyrone will have too much class, experience and, ultimately, too much desire.

TYRONE P McConnell; R McMenamin, C McGinley, C Gourley; D Harte, C Gormley, P Jordan; C Holmes, P Donnelly; B Dooher, S Cavanagh, R Mulgrew; R Mellon, K Hughes, O Mulligan

DERRY B Gillis; K McGuckin, K McCloy, F McEldowney; L Hinphey, P McFlynn, J O'Kane; J McBride, J Diver; M Lynch, B McGoldrick, F Doherty; E Muldoon, P Bradley, E Bradley