I had readily ceded to them that Darragh O Se fitted that description, but, even over the telephone, I could sense that they were 'locking, and loading', and aiming in my direction. And what about Seamus Moynihan, they asked? And what about Maurice Fitzgerald?

And, I waited for them to mention a few more names, but, you know what, the two Kerry lads on the lunchtime programme just kept on talking to me about Seamus Moynihan and Maurice Fitzgerald, and Maurice Fitzgerald and Seamus Moynihan, and Seamus and Maurice, and Maurice and Maurice. In a 20 minute conversation, covering 20 years of Kerry football, my two learned friends, under a bit of pressure admittedly, could only come up with three names.

I would have thrown Colm Cooper's name in as well, for free, but I decided to leave the two lads at it! Of course, as I stated last week in this newspaper, Seamus Moynihan was a very good player, strong and brave. You would think that not too many people would get very upset about that, wouldn't you? I mean, it's not like I said that their beloved 'Pony' of a footballer was really half a donkey.

The last two decades was a blistering period for Gaelic football and during this time we've watched a long line of outstanding teams grip and tantalise the country. We had Meath and Cork in the late 80s, and we had Down and a brilliant Derry team in the early 90s. There was a damn fine Dublin team around the place too at that time. Then we had Galway in the latter half of the 90s, and as we wheeled into a new millennium Tyrone and Armagh brought team performance to an entirely new level of intensity. I wouldn't put the Meath or Kerry teams which each won two All Ireland at the tail-end of the last century on the same big stage as the eight teams just mentioned.

But, I dare you? Go through all of these eight teams and, hand on heart, put your finger on individual footballers who were were real, live 'giants' of the game? When I do this exercise I find myself identifying a significant grouping of footballers who honestly excelled and entertained hugely, but who all came up short of meriting the label 'giant' or 'legend' or call it what you will. Mick Lyons, Larry Tompkins, Mickey Linden, Padraig Joyce, Michael Donnellan, Sean Cavanagh, Steven McDonnell, Kieran McGeeney have all been superior footballers. None of them were true giants of the game.

Colm O'Rourke was a giant, and Peter Canavan was too, but anyone who accepts the exercise I am presenting before you with the utmost seriousness will really, really struggle to put many more names on the same plate as O'Rourke and Canavan.

I hadn't mentioned Maurice Fitzgerald last week in my column at all, but since I'm now being invited to comment on his candidacy for 'giant-hood', I've got to say, lads, ladies, I don't think so! Maurice Fitzgerald was one of the most magnificently stylish footballers I have ever had the pleasure of watching, but if you ask me, or a jury of any group of county footballers over the last 20 years, you'll find that the judgement on Maurice is one that he under-performed to reach that dizzy mantle.

And, hey, nobody should take this personally. It happens! As I've written before - maybe a dozen times - I was fortunate enough to be on a Meath team which won two All Irelands, five Leinster titles and two National Leagues, and I was fortunate enough to be on a Leinster team which won three Railway Cups, and I was fortunate enough to play for Ireland a few times (actually, that was unfortunate! ) and win an All Star (should have been two! ), and I, Liam Hayes, was one of Gaelic football's greatest under-performers. A 'true giant' amongst under-performers, if you like. But still, to this day, if I am at an official function or if I am being introduced in public, it will usually be said that I am a 'legend', or that I was one of the 'greatest midfielders' ever seen in Croke Park.

One or the other, nearly all the time!

This is not true, of course, and I more than anybody know that a thorough inspection of my performances over 12 years on the Meath team would, quickly enough, make me unworthy of either comment. Just because people say it, does not make it truthful or in any way factual. Trust me, I'd love to believe some of the things I've heard people say about me since I retired. And just because Kerry folk tell themselves that the 'Pony' and Maurice and a rake of others were the greatest of all time, does not add up to 'diddly' amongst the nation's Gaelic football fans, who really know, and live and breathe, the game. In short, what I am saying is that we have devalued the term 'great' by over-usage and incorrect application.

Anyhow, it was an interesting week, and very entertaining in parts, but also enlightening. I didn't know before writing last week's column that it was against the rules to write a critical analysis of the Kerry football team.

Sure, only a few years ago (five or six summers ago) Kerry GAA people were noisily eating their own (such as two-time All Ireland winning manager Paidi O Se) and a great Kerry footballer (we're still talking about Paidi here, folks! ) was calling Kerry football fans 'animals'.

Kerry had won a couple of All Irelands at this time, but after well over a decade of great frustration and immense self-doubt - O Se was not the only manager who was hounded up and down the streets, and out of a job after Mick O'Dwyer's departure - nobody appeared very happy with the immediate past, or what the immediate future held for Kerry football. The county was in deep, deep trouble.

One county official in Kerry, over the last seven days, actually called me 'scurrilous' on more than one occasion. He had his great, big, chairman's knickers in an awful twist altogether, and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest, here and now, that the poor man was in such pain that he didn't really know what he was saying.

When Portuguese journalists write that Madeleine McCann's parents might know more about her disappearance than they are saying - that's 'scurrilous'!

Writing that the Kerry football teams of the past two decades have been second-rate by Kerry's own enormously high standards is not close - not even in the same parish - as being 'scurrilous'. I'll have a few more short words to say about this at the very end of this article, but let's get away from last Sunday morning (and my article in the Tribune) and let's get into the middle of last Sunday's All Ireland semifinal.

Of course, Dublin, as I suggested, did not win the game by seven or eight points. Dublin played poorly enough by their own high 2007 standards and their performance over the full 70 minutes was wildly inconsistent.

It was a game which Dublin might have drawn, but which Kerry did deserve to win.

It was not a thriller, and will be left in the tuppence-halfpenny department when compared to the great, rough 'n' tough, manly contests between the two counties in the past. Pat O'Shea made all the right, astute changes to his game-plan between the quarter-final and semi-final, and by taking Kieran Donaghy into a deeper role on the team and leaving Colm Cooper in more of a standalone target-man position, he allowed his entire team to break free from the rigours of 'kick and hope' football which has dominated the mind-set of this team for almost 12 months.

But we'd all been telling Pat, for weeks and weeks, that this was exactly what he had to do, so there's no top marks for the Kerry coach for this tactical performance. However, he does get ten out of ten for having his team mentally on 'red alert' for the contest . . . and for having his team back on the field before Dublin for the start of the second-half, and for having them get stuck into Dublin on the re-start and fighting like demons for every single ball. Like all Kerry teams, these lads like to play good football . . . and they did that at times last Sunday. Cooper was excellent, and this is the level of superior performance which people expect of him every single time he togs out.

The level of expectation is higher for him than possibly any other 'footballer' in any sport in the country . . . with the exception of Brian O'Driscoll, maybe. The bar is that high for Colm Cooper. But, y'know what, truly great players have to live and suffer that constant expectation. They live with a ridiculously high level of adulation and, correspondingly, they have got to live with a little bit of criticism too at times. Cooper has not been half the footballer he is supposed to be these last two years, admittedly through sad circumstances for himself and his family. But, now, in the All Ireland final, he must finish off the season with an equally perfect performance, if he is to get his career firmly back on track . . . and if he is to safely book his place alongside Colm O'Rourke and Peter Canavan at the very top table.

It was the raw energy of the Kerry players which was the single most impressive part of their performance last Sunday. On the ball, and off the ball, they were 'burning' it up, and in the circumstances things got a little bit nasty at times. . . and 'girly' at times too.

The Kerry team before us today is perilously close to winning three All Irelands in four years. And that would be a fantastic achievement in its own right. Nobody's arguing with the maths. But in pure pedigree, where does this Kerry team sit overall within this 20 years period? Remember, Kerry struggled to win one All Ireland in the whole of the 90s, and don't forget that the last two All Ireland victories over Mayo were embarrassingly awful non-events, admittedly thanks entirely to Mayo.

The last two titles, when measured up against the 30-something Kerry have claimed over the last 100 years, would find themselves probably closer to the bottom of the pile.

What I'm saying here is that there were eight outstanding All Ireland champions over the last 20 years and, apart from going toe-totoe with Galway, Kerry teams seldom got really close enough to any one of the others when those teams reigned.

And now we have a Kerry team who are No.1 in Ireland again. And clearly No.1 after physially and psychologically demolishing Dublin last Sunday afternoon. They are facing into an All Ireland final which could be a death-trap for them, with all the perils of a Munster final now presenting themselves in the month of September. Everyone expects Kerry to win. Me too!

And Kerry are going to find themselves in a dangerous place on the morning and afternoon of that game. It could be the greatest moment in Kerry football in 20 years, or it could become something else entirely.

If Kerry do lose, maybe then the people of the county will look back over their shoulders at two decades, and feel dramatically short-changed by everything they have experienced and everything they have achieved. Then they will certainly share my perspective of the last two Sundays - at least in the privacy of their own homes and their own quiet conversations.

If Kerry win this All Ireland, they will have a team worthy of sharing the same status as the outstanding teams of the last 20 years. A lot rests on the next 70 minutes. Nearly everything, in my opinion.