The first concerns Billy Morgan. People think they haven't got along but make it clear that they do. He's close with Billy's family; indeed Billy's nephew, William, would probably be his best friend. Two: "I hate cocky people so I'd hate to sound cocky, but at times I might, so will you. . . ?"

On both counts, you assure him you will. To meet James Masters is to like him.

Besides, Billy Morgan and James Masters do get on fine and James Masters isn't cocky. You can see why people might get the opposite impression though. When you look back at some of the quotes, they could make him sound like one of those US pro jocks angling for a rap album deal.

"When I was minor, I didn't miss a free, I'd say. It could have been from the touchline of the left-hand side and I'm left-footed, and I would still be putting them over."

"I love when the pressure is on and I love pressure frees."

"I was flying in the hurling too last year. Like, against Ballymartle, I got 3-11."

It stems from an endearing openness and innocence. As Tony Davis, Masters' coach when he played for the Cork under-21s, says, "James has that lovely wide-eyed look about him that you can't help but wonder with an O Se on his back how fast can he run?"

Fact is, for every comment that he makes that sounds arrogant, Masters will come up with another that's selfdeprecating.

"The Gooch would be a very fit fella. I wouldn't. In La Manga I would have been bringing up the rear of the laps, to be perfectly honest with you."

"This year in the hurling my free-taking was a pure disaster."

"I'm nowhere near Colin [Corkery] when it comes to the [football] frees, nowhere near him whatsoever. He's the standard and Billy knows that, you see. And you wonder, Jesus, because Billy worked with Colin and Colin would only take a free if he was going to put it over the bar . . . because you know, if he was 50 yards out and felt it was a bit beyond him, he'd play a one-two, work it in, and play the percentages . . . God, if I miss, Billy might think, 'James shouldn't have taken that'."

It's doubtful if Billy Morgan has many complaints about Masters these days.

Only for his Nemo protege, Cork wouldn't even be in today's Munster final. Four weeks ago Cork played Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds.

Only Masters reminded us why people play and watch the sport. Eight of the game's 14 points were kicked by him, five of them from play, one as delightful as the next. It was like the 1997 All Ireland final all over again . . . a dreadful game illuminated by the point-taking and elegance of one man. For Morgan, it signified something else. Ever since his All Ireland-winning teams started to disintegrate at the start of the last decade, the Cork attack had been led by a fellow Nemo man; first, Joe Kavanagh; then, Colin Corkery. Now it could finally be led by another.

It had been a long time coming. By the time Kavanagh and Corkery were 21 they were both All Stars.

By the time Masters was 21 he wasn't even a regular starter with Nemo, even though he had been the captain and star of Cork's All Ireland-winning minor campaign of 2000. He made his senior club championship debut at 17. "It was against Ballincollig, I scored two or three points and got two men sent off; I was playing brilliant stuff. Then I went to a concert." Missing training that weekend cost him his starting place, and it would take him four years to win it back.

Another year he went on a holiday and missed an under21 club championship game.

When he returned he couldn't get back on the team, even though the county under-21 side was built around him. In the 2001 Munster under-21 final win against Limerick, he kicked 1-3. Yet a week earlier Nemo hadn't even given him a minute in their onepoint All Ireland final defeat to Crossmolina. It would be the same when the two clubs met again in the final two years later.

"I'd be a very giddy fella and I'd say a lot of people would think that I wouldn't be serious about football when I am. Like, I don't drink. All I've ever wanted to do since I was a kid was either kick or puck a ball around up at Nemo. I remember summers, staying there 'til nine or 10 o'clock with William, not wanting it to go dark. There are other things to life than football and hurling too though. Witnness [concert], yeah. It was probably a stupid thing to do. [Pauses]. Yerrah, I don't know if it was either.

"I'm one of those guys who probably do things the wrong way. Like if there was 101 training sessions, I could go to a hundred of them but the one I miss I might get into trouble over it. And with Nemo, you think, 'Jesus, if I get injured, they might drop me.' It's not just me. Derek [Kavanagh] could miss a game, someone would come in for him, do well and the next day they'd consider not starting Derek."

Masters appears particularly vulnerable though. You ask him about his schedule for the past few weeks, considering he has to commute from Shannon, 75 miles from Cork. Turns out the two weeks previous to last week, he's been training or playing every night, bar two. When he's not with Cork, he's with Nemo because without the Cork contingent, Nemo training is seriously depleted. You tell him that for a player whose had trouble with his groins, ligaments and knee this past two years, it's lunacy. He doesn't see it that way, nor clearly do Nemo management, but one clubmate does.

"James has been a bit of an easy target in the club. He got labelled as a young fella as being gifted but a bit laidback and it's stuck. Like, the lads [senior club management] didn't start him in the last round against Mallow because he didn't get back a few nights from Shannon.

Now they brought him on, and he kicked three points no one else could have, but like, he didn't start. It's like they're always trying to teach him a lesson."

Some he had to learn, he appreciates that himself.

Morgan's tutorials were especially valued. Morgan, he says, never disliked him, he just didn't fancy him.

"I probably didn't win enough 50-50 ball. I remember coming on against [Kerins] O'Rahilly's [in the 2002 Munster club semifinal]. I was after scoring 1-2 but at the end I slid out in front of one of their backs, caught it and passed off to one of the lads. And Billy said to me afterwards, 'You know, you scored a lot today but the best thing you did was win that ball there'."

After his first year back with the county and harrowing defeats to Kerry and Fermanagh, Morgan realised Masters had too many other qualities not to be brought to the party. His ball-winning ability would improve if his upper body strength improved and Morgan would see to that. Other things hardly needed to be honed.

Mick Evans, his coach in Colaiste Chriost Ri, always noticed that Masters had that rare capacity to make teammates look and get better.

"When James was playing, one fella might score three points a game, then when James wasn't there, he might only average one. Why?

Because Masters would make it easy for him to score.

Whereas most fellas would put it too far out into the corner and the lesser player would have to work very hard for his score, James would put it where he just had to run onto it and pop it over. James still does that. When [Seamus] Moynihan stood off him in last year's Munster final, he ran that game."

His free-taking was also exceptional. An impressive practice ethic and some tips from a master had seen to that. A few years ago Corkery instilled into him the value of routine. First, put the pip of the ball facing the goal, it helps carry the ball that extra yard or two and you'll know it's the same kick every time.

Then the foot underneath, the steps back and across;

whether it's the last minute of an All Ireland final or up in the pitch in Nemo, nothing changes.

He was handy at the frees in the hurling too. In 2004 he was on the county intermediate team that won the All Ireland. The following January Ger Cunningham phoned to ask him onto the senior panel. Billy Morgan was within earshot at the time, the footballers were training the same day. When Masters turned round and mentioned it to Morgan, he was told, "Well, James, you're going to have to pick". In his mid-teens the choice would have been easy . . . hurling. So was this. It had to be football.

"No disrespect to the hurlers but I'd prefer to stay 10 years with the footballers and win one All Ireland than win four or five with the hurlers because it's harder for us. I want that All Ireland medal and I won't stop 'til I get it."

He had an outside chance of one last year.

After kicking five points against Tyrone and eight against Dublin in the league, he scored 14 points from wing forward in four championship games, along with a delightful lobbed goal against Sligo. Then in the All Ireland semi-final Cork once more ran into Kerry and Masters into Moynihan. Morgan showed them that video again two weeks ago. Painful viewing.

"We gave them too much room, " says Masters. "The Gooch did well against Niall Geary alright but you can't blame Niall. If I was a corner forward and there was perfect ball coming into me and I'd enough time outside me, I'd point it too. We weren't cute enough. I wasn't anyway. Moynihan, fair dues to him, he was. I was running in for breaks while Moynihan would go away from the breaks altogether. Next thing, a Kerry fella would win the break, Moynihan would call for it and he'd be gone.

"He'd leave me off around midfield but once I'd come inside that 45, he wouldn't let me pass that line. His physical strength was too much for me at the time."

It would be different now.

He's beefed up and is able to win the hard ball; he wouldn't have been able to rack up the scores he did for Nemo in last year's county championship otherwise. In the Munster club final, he scored 1-5 from play. It won't be Moynihan taking him up today though, more likely it'll be Marc O Se or Aidan O'Mahony. Cork need him inside. Of course, they could do with him outside to feed him inside too.

"It's no longer a case of whether James can make the team, " says Tony Davis, "it's a case of whether he can carry the team. If he was playing for Kerry, Tyrone or Dublin, he'd be an All Star but Cork need him to be even more than that."

A former Cork under-21 teammate agrees. "He's like what Joe Deane is to the hurlers. Cork mightn't win an All Ireland with him but they won't win one without him."

Today he'll settle for a Munster medal. It won't be easy, either for Cork or for him. "I have to make the right runs, " he says, "their [Kerry's] training is marking Gooch every night." It can be done though; Limerick wasn't a fair reflection of this Cork team, he insists. They were probably jaded from all the hard training in La Manga.

More, he says, it has to be done.

"I did okay against Limerick but I don't think I've been as consistent as I was last year. I'm 23 now. I'm not where I want to be."

But at least he's in red. It fits. He belongs.

KERRY TO QUIETLY TAKE THEIR FOURTH MUNSTER TITLE IN A ROW M

UNSTER SFC FINAL KERRY v CORK Killarney, 4.00 Live, RTE Two, 1.45 When it comes to Cork-Kerry we're told each game is a law onto itself, form goes out the window, reputations and credentials too. It's that myth that should be discarded; Kerry wouldn't be going for the quietest four-in-a-row in football if it applied. With the exception of 2002 and possibly '99, '92, '91 and '83, when in the last 30 years has the likely winner failed to emerge as the eventual winner? If Cork had the momentum and verve they had going into this fixture this day last year, we'd fancy them. Kerry are vulnerable. Longford disposed of Waterford and Tipperary with more conviction.

Life in the goldfish bowl and without his father is taking its toll on Gooch. A side brimming with conviction and confidence . . . a Donegal, say . . . would topple Kerry. Cork are not.

Last year they entered the Munster final on the back of a 12point win over Clare in Ennis; a few weeks ago they were beaten by the same county at the same venue behind closed doors.

Between it and Limerick, Billy Morgan's patience snapped. A raft of changes were made for a challenge game against Westmeath and the side who won that evening by three goals starts today. Morgan's supporters will hope his bold selection smacks of the spirit of Jimmy and Larry's in '99. From this remove, it's more reminiscent of the county's revolving-door policy of the early '80s. Last August Cork beat Galway with a performance Babs Keating rightly claimed as the kind any coach would be proud of, including John Allen. Only six of that Cork team start today.

Twelve of that Galway team rattled Kerry in the league final.

Yet who looked in greater need of surgery after last year's quarter final, Galway or Cork?

In certain areas Cork have improved. Last year's attack had no bona fide go-to guy, it now has in James Masters. Defensively, they've tightened up; no one will score 2-11 or 1-19 off them this summer. As Nicholas Murphy speculated in these pages before the Limerick game though, they might have become too defensive. While Pierce O'Neill's call-up is warranted, the halfforward line is effectively an alternative midfield-half-back line. In trying to deny Gooch the supply he enjoyed in Croke Park last August, they might unwittingly invite Tomas O Se forward like in Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

Cork are geared to win by scoring something like 1-9 or 010 but if Masters is restricted, will they even threaten that quota? Who'll feed him, now that Conor McCarthy is on the bench?

What does Seanie O'Brien offer that McCarthy doesn't? What does Kevin McMahon offer that David Niblock doesn't?

McCarthy, Daniel Goulding and Noel O'Leary might all be good to come on in the last quarter for a point but will it still be a game by then? So many questions. Too many questions. The Kerry forward line isn't at its most cohesive but it's still more cohesive and potent than Cork's.

Verdict Kerry by four

CORK: A Quirke; M Prout, G Canty, K O'Connor; M Shields, G Spillane, A Lynch; D Kavanagh, N Murphy; S O'Brien, P O'Neill, K McMahon; J Masters, F Goold, D O'Connor

KERRY: D Murphy; A O'Mahony, M McCarthy, M O Se; T O Se, S Moynihan, M Lyons; D O Se, K Donaghy; P Galvin, D O'Sullivan, E Brosnan; C Cooper, B Sheehan, P O'Connor