No matter what happens on Sunday, mackerel season in October will see every moment relived across the radio waves when the fishing fleets from Donegal and Kerry meet off the north-west coast.

"The Kerrymen are down from the mountains" was the greeting from a smiling Taoiseach Enda Kenny for some life-long Fine Gael supporters who turned out yesterday to welcome him to Killarney.

The man who came up with the name for that famous video called Kerry’s Golden Years has a lot to answer for.

Sitting across the table from me in a café in Cahirciveen, the legendary Mick O’Connell sought my opinion on a matter that was troubling him.

I COULD introduce the ‘kingdom’ of Kerry with a description of its incomparable physical attributes, from Cahirsiveen to Ballybunion, but a few well-taken photographs would eclipse my most passionate prosopography.

WITH the announcement of the 2011 Billy Coleman Award winner just days away, some of its former incumbents are busily planning for next season even though one driver is being coy about his plans.

THE Kerry management are confident of having their goal-keeping position resolved before the end of the Allianz NFL, with coach Jack O’Connor indicating after yesterday’s game in Fitzgerald Stadium that they are unlikely to “spread the net” beyond the three players who have filled the position so far in the McGrath Cup following Diarmuid Murphy’s retirement.

YOU waited to hear Jack O’Connor say straight out that Kerry were poor and that they wouldn’t win the Munster final on this performance.

FOR two years the GAA press corps has been waiting to quiz Kerrymen about the prospect of facing their northern nemeses again and, when the question finally landed at Jack O’Connor’s feet yesterday, it did so utterly devoid of any fancy wrappings.