"How you doin', Jack?" I'd asked at the start of the programme. We were both connected to the studio by telephone. There was complete silence at the other end of Jack's line.

"Can you hear Liam there, Jack?" queried our host and Newstalk's Off The Ball presenter, Eoin McDevitt.

"I can hear him fine, " replied Jack.

Jack, as it turned out, didn't have much to say for himself at the end of the discussion eitherf "beep, beep, beep, beepf" In the middle of the show, when we did get to talk to one another, I felt it important to remind Kerry's most recent two-time AllIreland winning manager that it needed real "courage" and "backbone" to back up even the most strongly held convictions on Gaelic football, and sport in general.

I informed Jack that I was handing over my heart-felt assertion that this Kerry team has, to date, lacked any real enduring sense of quality or superiority (as in Tyrone or Armagh in this millennium, or Meath and Cork and Down and Derry at the tail end of the previous millennium) and our conversation quickly got f interesting, which would be one way of putting it!

Jack was claiming that I was being sensationalist and negative for the sake of it. I told him I wasn't. I actually do believe Kerry football has been off the pace, by its own high standards and when measured up against the great teams I've just mentioned, over the last two decades.

But, when I asked Jack . . . and I asked him three times (bringing a small biblical element to the proceedings) . . . why did he not stand over his own autobiography which was published this summer, and why did he disassociate himself from his own 'All Ireland winning' story in 10 seconds flat once the heat was upped over his admission of becoming a semi-professional GAA manager last season, Jack remained schtum.

I was surprised by that, I've got to say, that not a single word passed his lips as a product of either self-defence or strongly held conviction.

There has been a question mark over Jack O'Connor as an amateur football coach since he about-turned and did not stand over a book which was presented to GAA fans as his own autobiographical work.

He did that damage all by himself at the start of the summer. And, by the end of this summer, over the last few weeks, I have questioned the credibility of his former football team and seriously questioned its standing as two-time All Ireland winners. It's a funny, surprising old world, is it not?

This morning, Kerry are in the last hours of preparation for another All Ireland final, and Jack O'Connor is in the difficult position of watching his Kerry team entering another All Ireland final without him. The baton was handed over to Pat O'Shea alright, many months ago, but, this summer, this team has remained as much O'Connor's as O'Shea's.

So this Kerry team is now facing its greatest adversary of all time in Croke Park on AllIreland day . . . and a Kerry football team has never had so much to win in 70 minutes, and so much to lose in 70 of the fastest minutes a football team might ever experience.

In all likelihood, Kerry will win yet another All Ireland title this afternoon, and if they do so this Kerry team will become the seventh great football team to span the last 20 years of Gaelic football, and the county itself will be back on track to perhaps regaining its position in the near future as the single greatest entity in the GAA . . . football or hurling!

This Kerry team is of marginally superior quality to Cork overall and, all things being equal, if both teams get into their stride and play the kind of football they are capable of playing, then Kerry can beat Cork . . . as they have consistently done on the 'big day' over the last few years . . . by four or five points.

However, this game of football has all the rabid characteristics and great perils of a Munster final contained within an All Ireland final, and nobody can be too sure what sort of game of football will emerge a few hours from now. All things may not be equal for very long!

In addition, this is more than a 'big day' between Cork and Kerry. It's bigger and has the potential to be more overpowering than any game of football ever played between the two teams. The contest could leave both teams unhinged. We might see both teams on 'automatic pilot' before the game is even halfway through. It might be low-scoring, and tight and suffocating. Or, it might become a madcap game of football.

Nobody can be quite so sure what will become of this game . . . and that includes the two coaches, Billy Morgan and Pat O'Shea and their respective teams.

Whatever form of game presents itself this afternoon, there is a slim-to-decent chance that Cork could sneak it, with sneak being the operative word in every sense. To be in with a chance of doing exactly this, Cork have to do two things very well. But only two things.

They have to edge out the battle for good ball and ugly ball in the middle third of the field, and they have to put someone on Colm Cooper who will actually beat Kerry's single master craftsman to the ball.

Cork are confident coming into this All Ireland final because they believe that Murphy, Kavanagh and Cussen can dominate in the air, and they feel just as strongly that O'Leary, Spillane and Miskella can win as much broken ball as might be necessary to keep the Kerry defence pinned back in its own half of the field. Here, Cork need to push the Kerry half-back line especially deep into their own half . . . they need to 'roll and maul' like Eddie O'Sullivan's lads on a good day.

Their pre-match confidence is also underpinned by Graham Canty's ability to go oneon-one with Cooper, and live to tell the tale.

When the opposing team has the best forward in the country and you've got the best defender in the country, you're going to feel as bullish as Billy Morgan, privately, certainly feels about this historic day. It's not just a question of Morgan thinking that this is his turn.

That, if he and his team turn up in Croker often enough in the months of August and September that they will, one day, surprise Kerry and actually defeat them . . . that's not what Cork are thinking, because their team boss has been around long enough to realise that football has a wicked way of dealing with teams (Mayo would come to mind at this point) who think if they stick around long enough they are bound to win something.

Morgan also knows that Kerry have been living in fear of losing this game more than his team, and he is certainly wily enough to see that Cork extract some advantage from this mental, more than physical, side of the contest. If Cork can pressurise Kerry hard enough and long enough over the 70 minutes, he will be hoping this fear takes a grip on Kerry in the latter stages of the contest.

Definitely Cork will need this factor, as well as an outstanding defensive performance and a big midfield display, if they are to actually win the game. Because Cork do not have the natural talent or raw firepower up front to do the damage that they need to do to win this All Ireland title.

The return of James Masters, whether he starts or comes charging into the game midway through, is important and will become vitally important if and when Cork have to convert those one or two vital, late frees near the end of the game. And when this time comes, Morgan will not be very worried that the country's highest scoring forward will be disadvantaged by the broken jaw he has suffered and recovered from in a little over one month.

Masters still had his boots on for the last month. It's not like he had one leg plopped up on a chair in front of himself all the time he has been away, and after missing out on just one game in the lead in to this All Ireland final there is no question of Morgan's only star forward feeling that he must restart or kick-start this championship.

Billy Morgan, given the obvious strengths and weaknesses to his team, is in as strong a position to win a game of football as he has ever been, and that's why he can and should be happy enough right this minute.

There is every chance Kerry could live up to this mammoth moment in GAA history.

Let's forget about debates over the last 20 years of Kerry football and look at this team all on its own. It's not the complete package.

But it does include a core group of the purest and most magical Gaelic footballers in the country, and today will be decided by those gentlemen . . . by the O Ses, by Donaghy and by Cooper.

While Declan O'Sullivan delivered a captain's performance, with cream and a cherry sitting on top of it, in the semi-final victory over Dublin, he remains slightly outside of this clutch of footballers. It will be surprising if he makes the difference between two teams, two days running.

Pat O'Shea admitted during the week that strong-minded, intelligent and superbly talented footballers sometimes do not need to be managed or coached all that tightly. And here, he's talking about these five men more than anybody else. He's also admitting that in a short and distracting first year as Kerry boss, he himself has not been in a position to dig his initials into this team. He's been assisting them more than anything else.

Assisting Jack O'Connor's team and finishing off the work which needed to be finished off after the last two less than complete All-Ireland victories.

All the talk over the last few days has, invariably, centred on Colm Cooper more than anyone else. And rightly so. But this All Ireland title might be carried back home to Kerry by Donaghy. He's had a quieter summer than 2006, and he's not scored very much at all, but when he was allowed to leave the big square during the semi-final . . . and was asked to express himself as the footballer he is in a more central role in the middle of the field . . . Donaghy showed us he has what it takes to become the most complete, and intelligent and expressive, midfielder in the modern game.

His natural instinct on the ball, and his creative . . . more than his finishing . . . abilities are what soon might leave the entire country in awe of the young man. One devastating performance from Kieran Donaghy over 70 minutes will be more than this Cork team can take or survive.

That's why Kerry can and should win the 'biggest day of them all' between themselves and their closest neighbours, by the four or five points they have become accustomed to winning by.