Would James Masters start?

Could Anthony Lynch do a Gerry Quinn and miraculously start at wing back? In Cork they never go beyond Tuesday in announcing a team but Billy Morgan would have reason to depart from such protocol. He wanted to keep his friends across the border guessing, give Lynch more time and his likely absence more impact giving the team a further cause and martyr to play for. Besides, such heightened conjecture over a team selection has tended to be a lucky omen for him.

Before the 1990 All Ireland against Meath, Morgan had so many options and hard calls to consider, Century Radio paid good money to secure the exclusive right to reveal his final selection to the nation. That story, that game, was that big. Win and Cork had finally slain their nemesis, secured De Double, claimed back-to-back All Irelands; immortality or notoriety beckoned. Even up to a few weeks ago Morgan could never have thought he'd want to win another game more than he wanted to beat Meath that day. Yet today would trump it. To beat Kerry, in an All Ireland final? If ever there was an All Ireland to win, this is it.

In Kerry they feel the same. "If we beat Cork, " Paul Galvin has said, "it'll be this side's greatest day." Winning back-to-back All Irelands, even signing off Darragh's career with his fifth All Ireland, is secondary; beating Cork in the first all-Munster All Ireland final, primal. But that means the corollary applies.

This side have lost some big games . . . Armagh 2002, Tyrone 2003 and 2005 . . . yet losing today would reduce all those to league games.

"If we don't beat Cork, " Galvin admits, "we are nothing. That's what we'll be remembered for.

Anything we won before will be forgotten."

The last statement is an exaggeration but the sincerity of his sentiment is not. In Kerry they can remember you for the All Irelands you lost rather than the ones you won. As Michael Foley's delightful new book Kings of September reveals, only 18 months ago Mikey Sheehy had a stranger phone him to snarl "You f****r, you bottled it in '82!" Tom O'Sullivan of Rathmore has won three All Irelands and beaten Cork in eight championship matches yet down in border country all he'll ever have thrown back at him in retirement is that All Ireland against Cork. Today the fear of losing is as real as the desire to win, and should it even supersede it as it did in the allUlster All Ireland four years ago, we could be in for one scrappy, mean-spirited game.

Today's final is unlikely to descend to quite the rancorous lows of Tyrone-Armagh, but brace yourself for one of the most grinding, least free-flowing All Irelands of the past 10 years. Cork know Kerry rarely lose in shoot-outs and that Cork-Kerry rarely does classics. Since '76, the only game that approached such status was 1988 when Maurice Fitzgerald first announced his genius to the nation and Dinny Allen last showcased his . . . the 2001 shoot-out between Corkery and Crowley being spoiled by Brian Gorman's worst hour with a whistle. As much as some leading pundits disputed its intensity levels, this year's Munster final was one of the five best Old Firm games of the past 30 years.

The football year in general has been similarly under-estimated. We dare anyone to recall a year that produced four such satisfying provincial finals or a better round of last12 games. Monaghan and Sligo and Louth provided the year with its share of novelty and romance; every match bar one the Dubs played was a barnstormer; while the rejuvenation of Meath and ninth life of Graham Geraghty was a soap opera all of its own.

Yet, for the first time since the turn of the millennium, the big ball was dwarfed by the small ball.

Mostly it was down to the sheer splendour of the hurling (Declan O'Sullivan might be in poll position for Footballer of the Year but he hardly lights up our Sundays like Big Dan), partly due to RTE's shameful coverage of the qualifiers, but football has to face up to its own faults too. For most of May and all June, RTE beamed out at least one live football game every Sunday and too many of them were foul-tempered local dogfights such as Galway-Mayo and Tyrone-Fermanagh. Even Armagh-Donegal would have turned off many a neutral who'd have been riveted by any fare offered from Thurles. In too many of those aforementioned dragfests, when a man fouls or is fouled out the field, he invariably either resists giving the ball back to the freetaker or he has to wrestle it from his opponent to get the game going again, increasing the chances of either taking a swipe. If the authorities were to imaginatively legislate for and avoid such flashpoints, referees and the DRA and every other alphabet gang in the GAA constellation would have their workload reduced by at least a third.

Too many brand leaders disappointed as well. Galway's season and the Peter Ford reign in general basically amounted to being a Stop Mayo movement; Armagh kept looking over their shoulder and were duly passed out; Tyrone have a leadership crisis in the post-Cormac and Canavan era, while no one does self-destruct quite as well as Donegal, as much as Mayo tried by dismantling instead of merely tweaking the side that reached a league final. Even some of the success stories didn't feel as good as they should. For those of us from outside Sligo, it will take a few months, possibly years, to remember their year for Eamonn O'Hara's goal more than the bore against Cork. John O'Mahony was right when he said it last Thursday . . . this season could do with a good final.

It will get an absorbing one. Two of the best four midfielders in the country are on view, even if Darragh O'Se will dispense with the law of Munster and look to break instead of catch every ball in Nicholas Murphy's orbit.

The country's best attack faces its best defence. The question is, will the land's best forward go head-to-head with its best back?

This past year every All Ireland contender has been looking for someone who can limit Kieran Donaghy, and for the past five years, someone to curb Colm Cooper. Cork's blessing and dilemma is that in Graham Canty they have the ideal candidate on both counts. The wisest move would be for him to take up Gooch . . . surely that lesson was the one positive they took from the humiliation that was August 2005. If Gooch drifts outfield, that should suit Cork fine. Whenever he's done so in the past, Kerry have still had a finisher like Mike Frank or Declan Quill inside. With those pair rooted to the bench and Donaghy effective but containable this year, no such predator lurks today.

Canty's presence isn't the only grounds for Cork optimism. When Diarmuid Murphy looks out that field to find some place to kick it out to, he'll see the most formidable barrier he's encountered in three seasons of inter-county football. Recalling Masters was the right move. As Steven O'Brien pointed out during the week, the Eoin Kelly experience this year confirmed every team needs its top forward back at some point. If Cork football has learned one thing from '99 and the Colin Corkery situation, it's surely that.

But did Daniel Goulding have to be the one to make way? Another glaring trend in Cork football history is its lack of quality corner-forwards yet Goulding is such a player . . . in Cork's last two league games against the Kingdom he's scored 60 percent of their scores from play. Win or lose, Cork will not out-point Kerry today and Goulding is the panel's most natural goalscorer.

The suspicion here is that Cork have picked one ball winner too many and one ball player too few. Kerry can live with Cork winning 60 percent of the kickouts; with that personnel Cork will hand enough of it back. If Michael Cussen isn't going to be used as a target man then it's hard to see what purpose he serves . . . Tom O'Sullivan isn't going to make the mistake of following him out like he did in Killarney and give Donncha O'Connor all that room inside. For all their virtues, this Cork attack doesn't have the cohesion or slickness that every All Ireland winner after 1997 has possessed. In truth you have to go back to Cork in '99 to find as artisan an attack to reach an All Ireland.

The sense here is today will be a similar game to that final. It'll be close, it'll be tense, but just as Giles and Geraghty shaped '99, the side not in red has that bit more quality upfront to notch the vital scores at the death.

Darragh and Tom to retire in peace. Kerry by three.

2007 ALL IRELAND FOOTBALL FINAL CORK v KERRY
Croke Park,
3.30 Live, RTE 2, 12.30
CORK'S PATH TO THE FINAL 20 May Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Munster championship quarterfinal . . . Cork 2-14 Limerick 0-7 3 June Gaelic Grounds, Munster championship semi-"nal . . . Cork 2-18 Tipperary 0-10 1 July Fitzgerald Stadium, Munster championship final . . .

Cork 1-13 Kerry 1-15 21 July O'Moore Park, All Ireland qualifiers round three . . . Cork 0-16 Louth 0-14 28 July Croke Park, All Ireland quarter-final . . . Cork 1-11 Sligo 0-8 19 August Croke Park, All Ireland semi-final . . . Cork 1-16 Meath 0-9 KERRY'S PATH TO THE FINAL 3 June Dungarvan, Munster championship semi-final . . . Kerry 2-15 Waterford 0-4 1 July Fitzgerald Stadium, Munster championship semifinal . . . Kerry 1-15 Cork 1-13 12 August Croke Park, All Ireland quarter-final . . . Kerry 1-12 Monaghan 1-11 26 August Croke Park, All Ireland semi-final . . . Kerry 1-15 Dublin 016