Kerry vs Cork! Reigning All Ireland champions vs reigning Munster champions! ! Billy Morgan viewing his ninth Munster title as team boss vs Pat O'Shea looking for his first! ! !

Canty vs Donaghy, and � S� vs Kavanagh and Murphy and anyone else Cork may decide to pitch into the midfield contest against Gaelic football's One True Heavyweight Champ! ! ! ! All the ingredients are there, so why don't you or I hear any rolling of drums?

The absence of any sense of massive anticipation this morning as a pristine Fitzgerald Stadium awaits is confusing and more than a little bit disorientating.

Are we really this far into the 2007 championship already? Normally when red and green and gold meet on the streets of Killarney the heart is beating so fast and so loudly that that any background noise whatsoever is inconsequential.

But, this very morning, we've got Connacht finalists and Ulster finalists and Munster finalists, and only some light business still to be taken care of in Leinster, and yet we're still waiting for this summer to catch fire. Meath and Dublin over 140 minutes was a spark, and only that in truth.

What's missing for me is Mr Jack O'Connor. And I don't mean any disrespect to his successor in returning to this subject on the day of the Munster final, but, Pat is Mr Nobody right now. Nice guy, quiet fella, and steeped in the Kerry tradition of saying sweet feck all. Listening to Pat and looking at Pat, the hairs don't stand upright on the backs of our necks. Unfortunately. Not yet, anyhow. Maybe he'll surprise us. Or not.

Jack was a bit of a trim and tidy and muscular Parish Priest-type character himself during his three years as team boss, and isn't it just typical, we have to wait until he's departed the sideline before he puts the cat amongst the nation's journalists by uttering something with the merest hint of controversy attached to it.

His disclosure over recent days that he was looked after (in some shape or form) by the Kerry County Board will not send shock waves through one single parish in Ireland, however I suppose we've got to be content with it since there's not much else happening. It's not as if Billy Morgan has been spitting fire over the last week. And Pat O'Shea, in all honesty, has no reason to say anything to anybody, yet, since he's really only keeping watch over Jack O'Connor's lads this season. It must be really strange to be in Pat O'Shea's shoes.

He's had nothing much to do really, since arriving into the Kerry dressingroom, apart from making sure that the lads are well fed and that everyone has the right gear, and that Kieran Donaghy is of sound mind and body to do it all again. That's Pat's only real job this year - making sure that Donaghy can reenact even three-quarters of last summer's magnificence. That's all. Because this is not Pat's team, it's still Jack's.

He should still be on the sideline, finishing the job, and searching out a suitable ending for himself and Darragh � S� and whoever else on the Kerry team would have liked a spectacular finish to their careers. Two of the weakest and most easily forgettable All Ireland triumphs in the history of Kerry football should not have been the be-all and endall for Kerry's former manager. I've always sensed that there was greatness within Jack O'Connor, and lots of other intriguing bits and pieces which we'll never know about. We'd love to have seen him angry, we'd dearly love to have seen him explode on the sideline - and see how he recovered himself?

We would, this morning, be in a far more exciting place if he was going headto-head with Billy, again, and if he was standing guard a couple of yards removed from the Billy then this Munster final would have had the backdrop it so badly needs. Instead, it's blankety-blank.

So let's get straight to the key question and ask ourselves do we think Kerry have the legs and the will, without their real team boss, to make it the whole way to the end of September?

The Kerry team, as much as anyone else, could do with a rousing Munster final of old. It will help Pat O'Shea find out what he needs to know about the three new boys who are playing in their first Munster final, and it would definitely aid in deciding whether Mich�el Quirke has the mobility and speed for the middle of the field.

Certainly, O'Shea can switch Quirke with Donaghy at any time, and with that the simple game plan which O'Connor and Kerry unleashed upon poor Longford and the nation last year might still be just as effective. If Quirke adopts Donaghy's unbelievable composure from last summer, then he is probably even more capable of upending every second opposing defence he meets. And Donaghy's true position, still, is the middle of the field.

That's where Kerry need him to be - showing that there is real life after Darragh � S�. And with Kerry failing miserably to unearth anybody over the last half a decade to be even half as good as � S�, they need Donaghy at No 8 or 9. The immediate future of Kerry football depends upon it.

You weren't expecting that, were you?

Didn't really dawn on you that this Kerry team could slip through the floorboards for a couple of years, if Kieran Donaghy fails to very quickly develop into a real powerhouse in the middle of the field, did it? He may still battle hard with Canty in the hours ahead, and that in itself may be a contest which could linger long after this game has ended.

Canty is the complete defender in the country, bar none, and I'm telling you that includes the � S�s, Tom O'Sullivan and Aidan O'Mahony who share the field with him this afternoon. They're all good defenders, but if you had to pick one defender in the whole country to go into battle with, I'd have the Cork number three with me.

My money's on Canty in that battle against Donaghy, if that battle does take place and lasts the full 70 minutes. And that's advantage Cork. If, at the other end, Michael Cussen wrecks any sort of Kieran Donaghy-type havoc on the Kerry defence, and he might, since in a first season players with unique physical abilities either go through the floorboards or touch the stars, then Cork are two sets up.

To be in with a chance of a victory this afternoon, Cork certainly need to achieve a 'hop, step and jump' by having Canty, Derek Kavanagh and Nicholas Murphy, and Cussen dominate in those three central positions. And even if Cork do not look at all pretty in completing this piece of action, even if they struggle in the middle of the field for a while, they can retain their title by just dominating in these three positions.

Kerry, granted, have talent, and explosive talent at that in all sorts of positions all over the field, but it must be a little bit worrying for their fans that all of the fast, young, strong kids up front, who showed up at different times over the last two years, have disappeared out of sight for this Munster final.

Has Pat O'Shea, mistakenly, gone for the tried and trusted? He has no reason to be ashamed of doing such a thing, since nine out of 10 men in his position, as newly-appointed Kerry manager, would play it safe in year one and bet on the likes of Eoin Brosnan over one of the babies of the squad.

I think Cork will win this Munster title, and Morgan's remarkable ninth, not because they have developed over the last 12 months and are now strong enough to get a bit of a stranglehold on Munster, but because there seems to be a sense of automatic pilot about this Kerry team over the last few months. If Pat O'Shea has held back to date, and if his fingerprints are not all over this team, then Kerry might look headless and manager-less when the decisive moment arrives this summer - and if not today, then later on in this summer.

O'Shea, quite obviously, will not be getting his hands around the team until year two. Around that time too, he will have to make some of the hard decisions.

Meanwhile, over in Leinster, Liam Kearns must be feeling really excited and must surely be thinking that after all his slogging away against Kerry and Cork in Munster for what seemed like a lifetime, he's now got a provincial title within his sights. Laois, if they are to regain the Leinster title, have to demolish Wexford in some shape or form. They need to put a marker down to the Dubs well in advance of the Leinster final.

Wexford's victory over Louth was hot and cold, and Laois know in their hearts and souls that they are a six-points superior team to today's opponents - knowing such a thing, and showing it, however, are two entirely different things.

This Laois squad has worked longer and harder over the last eight months, than they ever worked in Mick O'Dwyer's years. Kearns and his dynamic new team trainer Eddie Jackman have done their jobs. Now it is up to the likes of Tom Kelly and Padraig Clancy and Chris Conway, in particular, to decide if they wish to finish off their inter-county careers on a successful note. This is the last chance for most of these fantastically talented footballers, who have been household names for many years, but who now need to quickly remind everyone around the country just why they became quite famous to begin with.

Laois have every reason to win this Leinster title, and greater reason than Dublin who would probably be better off getting a good kick up the backside in the next few weeks. A little intermission like that this season is what the Dubs require if they are to shake off appalling, plodding performances.