Maybe even a little bit scared. And it's no harm being scared. Often, indeed, being scared, without being scared stiff, is of great benefit to sportsmen and women who are in the business of having to summon up every last, measly ounce of energy if they are to perform to the very best of their ability.

O Se is great. He's the king of present day midfielders.

The reigning 'Heavyweight Champ' in Gaelic football, indeed. But, this afternoon, Darragh O Se will face one of the toughest tests of his brilliant career, and if he gets a beating . . . never mind if he's wiped out or KO'd clean . . . Kerry are going to be in big, big trouble. Darragh O Se v Eoin Lennon?

Darragh O Se v Dick Clerkin?

Or, Darragh O Se v Eoin Lennon and Dick Clerkin? One of these three battles will have the single greatest bearing on this afternoon's All Ireland quarterfinal and, therefore, there's no escaping the fact that O Se, once again, has a massive portion of this Kerry team on his shoulders.

And, y'know what, that's a great, big weight for an 'old' man. Some day, some day soon, O Se is going to collapse.

Last Sunday, I mentioned that I would give good reason why I believe that Monaghan can, and will, continue on their merrily historic way and reach and All Ireland semi-final. It's not just because I have a soft spot for Seamus McEnaney and everything he has done over the last two and a half years, and it's not because I named Monaghan at the start of the year as the 'little guy' who was going to surprise everybody. Nope. This prediction is not being made in honour of McEnaney, or myself. Just look at the two teams, size them up, compare them man for man, examine their respective performances over the last three months, and think long and hard about just how mentally tuned this Kerry team can possibly be to deliver, in the next few hours, their greatest performance of the last 12 months.

Because, something of that size, might just be needed against a barn-storming Monaghan in Croker today.

But, first, let's start with Darragh O Se (right). This afternoon he's got another new partner in the middle of the field.

Michael Quirke has temporarily exited stage left and Seamus Scanlon gets the No.9 jersey, and who knows what help O Se can expect to receive as he gets stuck into a probable mammoth 70 minutes battle with the pair of strong, talented young bucks from Monaghan.

For too long O Se has won too many big midfield contests on his own, virtually, for Kerry and the amazing thing is, all this time, Kerry management team and the people of Kerry generally have sat back and accepted the fact that the true home of powerhouse midfielders is no longer making footballers to fit this description. It's quite amazing.

We've seen, over the last decade, so many mediocre-to-good midfielders (but mostly siding on the mediocre. ) coming and going off the Kerry team. O Se has been strong and steadfast all this time, so no state of emergency was called for in The Kingdom, even though there has been no 18 years-old or 19 years-old, in a No.8 or No.9 jersey, with a big future ahead of him, in sight.

Instead of searching out and presenting the next Darragh O Se, manager Pat O'Shea, and managers such as Jack O'Connor and Paidi O Se before him, have been stuck to using all sorts of rough and tumble, and downright awkward looking, midfielders on their teams.

Kerry have won All Irelands in this period of time with individuals in the immortal green and gold who, in truth, were not even county footballers.

What's up? Michael Quirke was a big, interesting stop gap for the first half of this summer, and now O'Shea is promoting Scanlon who, the manager insists, has been 'going great' in training over the last few weeks.

For a team serving out its time as defending champions (and installed as the hottest of hot favourites to win a third All Ireland in four years) it is strange, and equally perplexing, that Kerry have not been able to put two footballers together in the middle of the field, and sit back and enjoy them, for five or six years, minimum.

I have argued, long and consistently, that this Kerry team of recent times is quite poor when measured against the All Ireland winning Kerry teams of any other decade you or I might care to choose . . . and would probably end up bottom of the heap if a league table of all of those teams was actually built.

The two All Irelands won over the last three years will be remembered, in distant future, as the All Ireland finals in which Mayo imploded. That is the legacy, or lack of it, which has attached itself to this bunch of footballers. Their two All Ireland victories have been left in a largely ruined state by Mayo's twin non-performances.

It's not that there are not good and fantastically talented footballers on this Kerry team. There are. A half dozen of them are great. But The Gooch' is like a Tiger Woods stuck on a couple of Majors, and we're still waiting to see more and more magical performances from him, and if they don't arrive in quick succession and in some style, well, unfortunately he'll not be offered a place at the top table of outstanding Kerry forwards.

Eoin Brosnan has all the athleticism of one of Jim Kielty's star pupils, and he's got the most natural, instinctive touch on the ball, but after nudging Maurice Fitzgerald out of his way to get onto the Kerry team in the first place, we still have to say that Eoin Brosnan is no Maurice Fitzgerald. And that's disappointing. As is Mike Frank Russell's last half decade. Skill to burn, but watching Mike Frank all this time is as frustrating as watching someone playing with one leg tied up behind their back.

O'Sullivan's good and Galvin's good, but for all the goodness of all these players, Kerry had to throw and untried Kieran Donaghy into an untested full-forward role, fairly late in the day last summer, before they looked anything like All Ireland champs in 2006. Behind the victory cheer, that was a damning indictment.

But for Kerry's defence, and but for O Se most of all, Kerry would be in a bit of a heap alright . . . rather than chasing a remarkable third All Ireland in four years. Jack O'Connor's all round excellence and calmness as a coach also saw the team through what otherwise would have been a rough patch of Kerry football history.

The six weeks wait for this game, makes it something like the first round of the championship for new manager O'Shea and his team, and there's no doubt that they'll have to concentrate hard and hope to quickly find their way into this quarter-final. Monaghan, meanwhile, have Down, Derry, Tyrone and Donegal (even if only three of these games ended up in victory) in their wake, and if they can go from 0 to 60 mph within minutes of the ball being thrown up this afternoon then Kerry will have a mighty, hell-bent opponent to deal with.

It took Seamus McEnaney's troops over 20 minutes to get up to speed in the Ulster final defeat by Tyrone.

That experience, that lesson, should be over for this young Monaghan team.

McEnaney will be confident that his team will get stuck in to this game, and the hustle and bustle and good delivery of ball won in the middle of the field will be central to any game winning plan.

The strength of Woods and, quite possibly, Corey will not have a major impact on the Kerry defence. Lennon and Clerkin need to get on top of almost everything . . . which, in the main means O Se . . . and with Paul Finlay roaming deep and 'working' the ball in the exciting manner he has been doing in recent months, Monaghan can be in a winning position. Or, at least, in a position from which they can view the winning line.

Getting there, means Monaghan defending in high numbers, without turning their backs completely on the opposition's half of the field . . . as Sligo did last weekend. No, strong defence and a dominant midfield can have Monaghan positioned to snatch the biggest and bravest victory's in the county's plucky history.

What Monaghan do not have is an inside forward line of All Ireland winning standards. They survive on Tommy Freeman, and that is not sufficient. Kerry will have a tidy queue of defenders who will all love the challenge of winning the game by completely closing down Tommy, and ultimately defusing him.

There is, undoubtedly, great athleticism . . . and also tonnes of pure footballing instinct and ability in the Kerry defence . . . and it has ranked as the great defence of modern times. Monaghan will never have experienced anything like it. That's why everything today, for Monaghan, depends upon a winning midfield and fine timing . . . the team has to get itself to a place where Finlay or Freeman can score the winning point.