A FEW days after Tyrone wiped away Donegal last month with a devastating exhibition of football, I felt obliged, as a football man, to ring Mickey Harte. Mickey was his usual courteous self, something I suppose he'd be with anybody, but he told me what he liked about the call was that I'd spotted something Tyrone do not get credit for. They do not play a blanket defence. Or if they do, then you have to add to that that they also play a blanket offence. Yet how often have you heard that said about Tyrone?

Contrary to popular myth, Tyrone don't play a blanket defence.

Armagh play a blanket defence. A couple of boys stay back and sit in front of the opposing full-forward line, a few others filter back and then they look to hit a couple of big men inside with the high long ball because they have the men to win it. Some Armagh backs will never go beyond their own 40-metre line.

But with Tyrone, it's completely different.

They come back in a tidal wave and then they break forward in a tidal wave. Their commandment is simple . . . Thou Shalt Not Give The Ball Away . . . and while some traditionalists might abhor that and prefer the long big punt favoured by the Armaghs and Meaths, I don't agree with them. The Tyrone way is why you'll see Ryan McMenamin and Dermot Carlin and Philip Jordan bombing up and taking points. I know I'd prefer to see a corner-back come up the field and kick a point rather than one who'll just balloon a ball from his own patch. I'd say if you go through it, there isn't another backline in football that's scored as much as Tyrone's.

It's tidal wave football, or as I call it, 360 degrees football. When they don't have the ball, it's total defence. When they do get the ball, they all turn around and it's total attack.

In short, it's total football, just not as you know it.

The first thing Monaghan will try to do today is put up a wall around midfield to stem that tidal wave. Dick Clerkin will be deployed as a third midfielder to not only win the breaks but stop those runners. But Tyrone are smart. If they come up against that wall, they'll just kick over it; why else do you think Kevin Hughes is at full-forward?

And yet, if I were a Tyrone man, I'd be nervous about today. Donegal thought they had the football and game plan to beat Tyrone but they didn't legislate for Tyrone's pace.

Monaghan have pace. And what's more, they get in your face. That's the only kind of team that can trouble Tyrone . . . one that has pace and can get in their face.

Last year Banty McEnaney's enthusiasm, for all its merits, tended to blinker his team's focus, but now they have that infectious spirit married with the more clinical, structured approach of Marty McElkennon. They have serious scoring power . . . remember, both sides scored 2-15 in the semi-finals . . . and Paul Finlay's return gives them even more creativity. And there's a chance that all Mickey's talk about how this is a home game for Monaghan might become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy and that the emotion of the crowd might affect his players in the closing minutes of a tight game when it really shouldn't.

The Monaghan attack won't be able to maintain the ferocious workrate and tackling levels which the Tyrone's forwards can. And the shackles are now off Raymond Mulgrew after that goal the last day. Not only do Tyrone have nearly everyone back but they have that old understanding back. Which is why today, I expect the Anglo-Celt Cup back in Tyrone too.

You probably saw that shoulder Paul Caffrey gave me before the All Ireland semifinal last year but let me tell you about another encounter we had had the following month.

Kerry had just blown Mayo away and as I stayed out on the pitch for the presentation, nearly wishing the ground would swallow me, I got a tap on the shoulder. It was Pillar, in his peeler uniform. And he hugged me. I literally needed a shoulder to cry on and Pillar was the first person to sense that and offer it.

That's why my heart, whatever about my head, hopes Dublin win today. Pillar might come across as all gruff with the media but he's one of the most sincere and witty men I know. He's also a great family man and a great football man and when he's over a team, his players are family, and God help anyone, media included, that are unfair to them.

I say all this because people have been unfair to Paul. He's living in a gold fishbowl where up to something like 10 former Dublin players or coaches are paid to publicly comment on his every move. Cork have gone longer without winning Sam Maguire yet you don't have anyone questioning Billy Morgan's credentials, do you? If Dublin lose, then Pillar is absolutely pillored. If they win, there's always a 'but', even if Paul wins a third straight Leinster today.

My one concern is that he might have too big a backroom team. For instance, he has a backs coach and a forwards coach. That's fine in American football, or even hurling, but Gaelic football is much more fluid. Forwards tackle and defenders attack. It goes back to Tyrone . . . 360 degrees football. In Tyrone Mickey Harte is the backs and forwards coach.

To me, Leinster football is too open. It's great to watch but for their own sakes, it's too open. If Kerry get a goal, they have a good idea how they got it. In Leinster, teams get a goal and they don't know how they got it, which means they don't know how to get it again.

Today's two finalists are like that. They don't score enough goals because they play too much off the cuff. Too often Dublin don't have anyone within 20 metres of goal. the Laois forwards move about the place like ants. No one knows where they'll go to next, including their teammates.

It's why last year with Mayo we decided to take up their forwards man-to-man. Positions did not matter; if Billy Sheehan went to midfield, Peader Gardiner was to follow him; same with Dermot Geraghty on Ross Munnelly. Dublin should do the same because I'd play Munnelly inside since his shooting range is limited while he'll create and take goals inside. And I'd move Paul Lawlor to centre forward because he could bomb through like Eoin Brosnan and score goals from there.

Bryan Cullen is brilliant going forward but we identified he'd be vulnerable against a Ger Brady putting him on the back foot.

Lawlor can do the same. Chris Conway cannot.

The two best midfield pairings in Leinster clash today. Clancy and Quigley can win ball and cut through for their own score, while for all the talk of Dublin being overrated, Shane Ryan and Ciaran Whelan are underrated.

Last August we rubbed our hands when Ryan was moved to the wing. Whelan's got a rep for being a bit of a hard man but he's targeted by others a lot more than he targets others. When he does lash back, it's either to retaliate or to retaliate first. He'd rather play football. And how good he is at just doing that, people won't appreciate until he's gone.

Stephen Cluxton's kickouts should see Dublin shade that battle. Throughout the field they have more power, more pace, and in Keaney and Brogan, that bit more class, and it will tell.

But then there will be that 'but'. It's not Leinsters this Dublin team or the Dublin media are interested in. After Armagh lost last week, you now have Kerry and Tyrone and the rest. Dublin are the best of the rest. And after today we might know whether they're capable of becoming the best of the best.

John Morrison coached Mayo last year when they beat today's two Leinster finalists to reach the All-Ireland final and got results against Monaghan and Tyrone to reach the league semi-final