That day obviously has no real relevance to this, but it's worth mentioning if only for the place it has held in Monaghan hearts and minds ever since. That was the day they nearly beat the greatest team of all, the day they nearly made what would have been only the second All Ireland final in their history. It was their one day as lions amid a hundred years as sheep and they've never let it go.

They need to, though. If the emergence of Seamus McEnaney's team this year has done nothing else, it's provided a reason for Monaghan people to talk about the future instead of the past.

Win today and Eamonn McEneaney's game-levelling free kick in the last minute that day might never be mentioned again. Which would be resolutely A Good Thing.

Could it happen? Absolutely it could. Monaghan have made too many strides and beaten too many names to come to Croke Park and melt in the heat of an All Ireland quarter-final. However fresh Kerry are today they still can't possibly be as cohesive as they'd be in a semi-final or final. The six-week lay-off gives Monaghan the best chance they were going to get of beating them this year.

If they do so, there's a fair chance you'll hear a lot of talk this evening of swarms and pack-hunting and the like.

The display in clipping Donegal's wings in Omagh a fortnight ago was their most complete of the season, with Tommy Freeman and Vinny Corey in the full-forward line and, well, basically everyone else bar goalkeeper and fullback line playing as a midfielder of some sort. Their philosophy was devastatingly simple . . . get the ball, keep it, let it in long to Corey and let Freeman play off him.

(Don't be fooled by the teamsheet either . . . Corey will play full-forward with Colm Flanagan on Donaghy patrol. ) In Woods and Paul Finlay, they have two of the sweetest strikers of a long ball around;

in Gary McQuaid and Damien Freeman, two silky and sure attacking half-backs who play a hard-running, overlapping game and who play it right up until the last whistle. It's all designed to keep the traffic going in one direction.

The word on the Kerry wind is that the sessions these past few weeks have been sparky and physical. If O'Shea has them in sleevesrolled-up mode today, it's as fine a training performance as we'll have seen all year because, apart from the fact that they've been on a long break, Kerry could also do with something to get riled up about. The simple fact is that they've no bone to pick with Monaghan and their only motivation today is to keep the car running ahead of an assault on back-to-back All Irelands. That makes them classic ambush fodder.

In the end, though, we can't bring ourselves to bet against them. Colm Cooper scored 4-2 in an intra-squad match a couple of weeks ago and in that kind of form he's untouchable, fun and all as it will be to watch the outstanding Dessie Mone try.