I could have said, 'How you doin?' or 'Best of luck', or even 'Be waiting for you at the finishing post, Seamus buddy'.

No. Liam Hayes, about to watch over his first game as Carlow football boss . . . and in an obvious state of some emotional flux or other . . . actually congratulated his rival manager (who was, also, awaiting his first competitive game at count level) by uttering two ridiculous, really stupid words.

"Well done, " said Hayes to McEnaney, looking, but mostly sounding, the complete and utter gobshite. Seamus looked at me, didn't seem to have any idea what I was up to and, sergeant-major-like, chest out, marched away in the opposite direction.

We did lose to Monaghan that afternoon three years ago. Carlow lost. We scored 2-9, and should have scored 5-9, honest to God, but we missed a penalty and struck the post twice when it would have been simpler to lift the net out of it. Monaghan, sadly, scored 0-20 that afternoon in Clontibret.

What I most remember from that game, in truth, is Monaghan's power and speed. And it wasn't just the smaller men and the two Freeman boys who were able to skip across the field which was in need of a good sharp razor being taken to it. The big men could move too, and they could score . . . especially young Dick Clerkin in the middle of the field. I think he scored nine out of their 20 points, five of them from play.

"You nearly embarrassed me there, and me in front of my own people, " said a happy Seamus McEnaney to me after the game. He knew he'd been lucky enough. It had been a level game with six minutes to go. The thing that struck me most about McEnaney afterwards, also, was he seemed amazed we'd even got close. Even though Monaghan were next to useless the season before. And even though Carlow had defeated Monaghan in the season before that again.

McEnaney had stated, in one of his local papers, the week before his first game, that for him the Monaghan 'job' was as big and all-encompassing, and as mesmerisingly dreamy, as being appointed boss at Manchester United. I'd read that, and it struck me that was the kind of thing which Sean Boylan would have come out with in his earliest days in Meath.

Next Sunday's All-Ireland quarter-final is a desperately, desperately dangerous game for Kerry, and I'll explain why in further detail next Sunday morning. For now, all I'll say is that people who have been saying that Meath were the one team nobody wanted to meet in the last eight were, very badly, wrong.

Monaghan is the one team which absolutely nobody should wish to meet in Croke Park . . . there's every chance McEnaney and the whole lot of them will go mad!

? ? ? Now, of course, of more immediate importance is next Saturday's game, and the reappearance of the team which nearly everyone, Meath folk especially, said they wanted to play!

We even had Derry's old midfielder Anthony Tohill, who regularly sounds far too old and far too sensible and respectful for a young man, tell the Sunday Game audience that Dublin V Derry was a good game for his native county.

I can't understand any of this myself. Not an ounce of logic to it. Why would Derry or Meath or anyone else have been happy to see the big, bold Dubs over the next week? Dublin can be a 'monster' in Croker for any team.

They can breathe in the energy of the place, and break any team down and tear them apart . . . and that goes for every team left standing in this championship, Tyrone and Kerry included.

Problem for Dublin is that they do exactly that and, next minute, they produce the intellect and disposition of the Pussycat Dolls.

Dublin, however, in my estimation, are the most dangerous team left and while they might not win this All-Ireland they will most assuredly go almighty close to it. And, in addition, I'm expecting one all-powerful, all-convincing performance from The Dubs in Croker any day now, which will only further increase the team's momentum in September's direction. The Leinster final victory over Laois was very good indeed, or 80 per cent of it was in that category.

One 100 per cent performance is still building up within Dublin, and this Derry team appears to be tailor-made to allow such a phenomenon to occur next Saturday.

As Tohill said last Sunday night, Dublin have just won three provincial titles in-arow, and Derry have not got within touching distance of one in this same period of time.

What Tohill did not reveal . . . because quite possibly he doesn't believe it . . . is that Dublin have created a team of definite, if not totally complete, character. Derry, on the other hand are flawed, and slightly flaky in the 'singleminded department'. This game is set up in Dublin's favour even more than that, as it happens. In fact this quarter-final could not be teed up any more impressively in favour of Paul Caffrey's team.

Derry, y'see, are coming into Croker with three 'big' victories in their sails, and even though they barely know the way from the dressing-room to the playing field, they think they are now heading for Ireland's very own theatre of dreams, where anything can happen. Derry are strong. They're able, and if they're in the mood they can play football which might even be termed attractive.

After beating Armagh, Mayo and Laois, this Derry team might be foolish enough to think that they have the right to go toe-to-toe with the Dubs in a classic heavyweight contest in front of 80,000 fans. Do that, or even think that for too long, and Derry are doomed.

It's unlikely Derry will freeze. They've been here before, and the team has enough years under its belt, so they will hardly be caught in the headlights of Hill 16. However, Derry do look especially vulnerable to Dublin's fast, fluent passing of the ball up the field. Dublin get the ball from A to Z twice as fast as most of the teams Derry have played in their neck of the woods.

All things told, Derry would have been better off getting Kerry in the 'quarters' . . . Kerry would have gone at them a little more slowly, and Kerry would have shown them greater respect. Derry would have been better off if they had been called down to Croker for Sunday afternoon rather than Saturday afternoon.

Dublin don't do 'respect'. The Dublin team can't do 'respect'. Dublin, if they sit and watch their opponents, turn into couch potatoes.

Dublin, instead, do the 'jugular' . . . they do that better than 'respect' by a long distance.

Taking most of the self-belief, if not the life, from this Derry team might be as straightforward as A, B, C.

'A' being Kevin McCloy, 'B' being Fergal Doherty, and 'C' being Paddy Bradley. After that, you've got individuals on the Derry team with big names who have not put in the really big performances in recent years. Sean Marty Lockhart, for instance, is a favourite on the lips of all media commentators, more because of what he did in the first half of his excellent career than the second-half. Enda Muldoon, too, has had a career of two halves!

For all Muldoon's brilliant instinct and magical touch he already seems to be looking forward to a long retirement. This sounds awful negative about Derry, and I'm genuinely sorry about that . . . some of my best friends are Derrymen and women. It's just that this game is heaven-sent for Dublin to give the massive performance they need before beginning the 'charge home' against Kerry or Monaghan in the semi-final.

Back to Derry's A, B, and C, briefly.

McCloy at full-back is strong and he's also made of good stuff, and the footballing bloodline of Doherty is the middle of the field is pure quality. And Paddy Braldey? He's a certified genius, no doubt, but only if he's getting good, fast, crisp ball.

However, Dublin have so many options to cover A, B, and also C . . . beginning with Keaney who can be asked to get into an oldfashioned bruiser, and he'd certainly do enough in that role to stop the Derry No 3 from being anything like the inspirational presence Derry need. Or Caffrey can get Keaney to take McCloy away from the edge of the square. If McCloy doesn't go? He's going to have Jayo or young Bernard Brogan to deal with, and either is nimble and quickwitted enough to seriously pressure McCloy, and test his reaction times and powers of recovery . . . after being turned inside out half a dozen times.

Alan Brogan, too, would have the strength and extra two yards of pace, as well as the 'twistability' to seriously get on top of things at the edge of the square. Advantage Dublin.

In the middle of the field, if Ciaran Whelan and Shane Ryan are confident of totally establishing themselves as the greatest midfield pairing in the country, then they must look upon Doherty as a welcome opponent. Whelan and Ryan are the best, and Doherty is the sort of opponent who will give Ryan the opportunity of classic, and effective, manmarking job. Advantage Dublin.

And Paddy Bradley? Advantage Dublin, if Paul Caffrey is extremely sensible, and that means never, ever leaving Ross McConnell all alone on Bradley, even if Dublin appear to be walking away with the game. Caffrey and his team simply must double-team Bradley, just to be sure, to be sure. Paddy Bradley can be hot, and he can go very, very cold . . . and when Derry are struggling throughout the field and Bradley is left to think about life, his instinct turns selfish, extremely selfish (as, indeed, is the case with most true geniuses I've known in Gaelic football).

Dublin have Griffin and Henry, as well as the tightest marker in Dublin club football, Stephen O'Shaughnessy (even though he's getting so few chances anymore that you've got to wonder if they are even giving him a shirt to wear beneath his tracksuit) who can work with McConnell. Bradley must be defused, and it's the safe thing to make that a two-man job.

After that, I expect Dublin will have . . . surprise of surprises . . . Monaghan all to themselves in the semi-final.