Keen and able
There is the challenge of stopping the side which beat the best of the rest en route to this decider. And there may be 'baggage' from the 2003 semi-final defeat, but Kingdom skipper Declan O'Sullivan insists that there is 'no extra motivation' for them to succeed. "It so happens to be Tyrone," he says.
O'Sullivan a club mate of Jack O'Connor received the captaincy after South Kerry won the county championship and his own side, Dromid Pearses won the divisional title.
"This is my fourth year in the Kerry set-up and we have a fantastic bunch of players. There are no egos in or out of the dressing room be they number one or number 30. That's the way it has to be to win All-Irelands."
Not that he is allowing his focus to wander about a trip up the Hogan stand steps to receive Sam Maguire from Sean Kelly.
"I haven't even thought about it," he says of acceptance speeches and such. "They're peripheral things, only side-shows. We're focused on winning the game and focusing on our own performance. Those things look after themselves if the result is right!"
Though one of the younger intercounty captains, O'Sullivan isn't crumbling under the pressure. He has plenty of other concerns, like maintaining his place in an attack bristling with talent. And with several All-Ireland winning captains in the side, he has plenty of leadership assistance.
When not paying tribute to his team mates, O'Sullivan also heaps praise on the backroom team and on Pat Flanagan in particular for helping him return so successfully from early season surgery.
"Pat keeps the training interesting and varied. He's a very positive guy. Every time he comes to training he has a smile on his face and that rubs off on the players. He has been fantastic. Players are coming into form at the right time and that's indicative of his training. Certainly we feel our best form came in the last game and hopefully it will continue."
The 'last' game against Cork went totally against predictions. O'Sullivan agrees that Kerry were prepared for a 'tough' game, one that they felt might go down to the wire. Except that it didn't. "You can look at it both ways, but the most pleasing aspect was that we put in a sustained 70 minute performance which we hadn't done previously. Tyrone have come through battles and you could say that we haven't been tested. It's not our fault that Cork didn't perform."
It was a different story in the Munster final, a game which didn't go well for the Kerry captain.
"I suppose that's true, but you are going to have days when things aren't going to work out for you. These are the occasions where you are going to put the head down and keep working for the team. On any given day it can be a different fellow popping up to be the match-winner.
"Obviously I'm delighted I'm contributing that bit more to the team. The subs coming in have been very strong and that has been a hallmark of our games this year. Every one who has come on contributed and showed a great attitude."
Tyrone's form has been 'impressive,' he agrees. Serious questions were asked in all the games they played and they've come up trumps. As far as Kerry are concerned, their games with Limerick last year and again this year 'have stood' to them.
"It's not purposely, but Croke Park seems to bring the best out of us," he commented.
"It's a massive challenge for us. They'll be favourites on the basis of the calibre of teams they've beaten. Certainly against Armagh the last day they were impressive and played a very intensive game. We'll be up against it, but it's a challenge that every player is looking forward to. You play football to be involved in games like this."
BACK in the early '90s, when Tyrone manager Mickey Harte first saw Brian Dooher play, he picked him out as one who could 'carry the ball endlessly'.
In fact, that was his problem, Harte now recalls.
According to Harte, the young man with the 'thick drawl' was the team's 'heartbeat' and if it was an apt description then, it's now one of the defining characteristics of the player who leads the team into Sunday's All-Ireland football final with Kerry.
After Tyrone won the All-Ireland for the first time two years ago, Mickey Harte surprised a lot of people when he stated that he brought his players together for collective training for no more than two nights a week. Players are expected to do a lot of other work on their own.
The advantage of this, says Dooher, is that it can be done on the player's own time, in his own area, cutting out the time and effort driving to and from training. "During the winter months you would always do a couple of nights on your own. You have to do it and it's a better way of doing it," he says. "There's so much competition for places that if you don't, you are going to be left behind."
The real stamina work is done late in the year. The way the National League is organised means that "you can't kill yourself" between matches. At the end of the day, the best training is playing matches. And the fact that they played so many this year - nine so far in the championship - means that they have done very little heavy work. Most important of all is to stay injury-free and Tyrone have been lucky in this respect in recent times.
There is, of course, a price to be paid for all of this. When Dooher thinks back to when he started out on his senior career in late 1996 he thinks about how the game "is more or less professional" now.
"Back then, you had a social life. And a normal life around football. You did whatever you wanted - you went to your training and came home again. Nowadays it's football from the time you wake up in the morning until you to go bed at night. You're orientating yourself around football. Your life is around football, rather than football being around your life.
"I'd be wrecked for a couple of days after matches. You'd be sore some days and you'd be tired. But, I don't mind the soreness, that goes away in a couple of days."
And, despite all that the role of a modern inter-county footballer entails, he has no complaints. Either you want to play football or sit and watch it! A veterinary surgeon, he recently moved jobs from a private practice to the Department of Agriculture. In effect, he had no choice because he found working in a practice meant he was "burning the candle at both ends," working odd hours and frequently being called out in the middle of the night.
"I had to do something," he commented. "My hours are more confined now, with less night work." Taking over the captaincy from the late Cormac McAnallen makes him all the "more honoured" to lead his team. But that's where it ends. He says it doesn't make him any different to any other player: "Nobody is more important than anybody else. Everyone does his bit. Yes, it is an honour, at the same time, we have 30 people doing the same job as I'm doing. My name is down on paper, but about 'first,' that's as far as it goes." Criticism of the tactics they employed against Kerry in the semi-final two years ago, or their current style, doesn't bother him in the least. "I don't care if we go out and play the worst football and win. People will write whatever they want, paper won't refuse ink.
"There was a time when forwards attacked and defenders defended. Nowadays, whenever you have the ball you attack and whenever you haven't, you defend. It's logic."
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