SIDELINE CUT:Kerry may again be the bookies' pets for All-Ireland success but it's hard to look past dormant Tyrone

THERE IS bound to be an added prestige to winning this year’s All-Ireland football championship, what with the GAA celebrating a century and a quarter of tradition and the matter of the definitive team of the decade yet to be sorted out.

Having opened off-Broadway, this year’s championship makes its home debut on Sunday and in terms of landing the silverware, the general consensus is that Kerry are the favourites yet again and Tyrone are, yet again, the team most likely to trip them up.

Being the bookies’ pets is a burdensome tag that legions of Kingdom teams have been forced to live with. Since returning to the inter-county scene, Jack O’Connor has had the look of a man who means business. It was clear from early on that Kerry were in no-nonsense mood throughout the league and it was no surprise that they won it. True, they experimented throughout and unveiled yet another series of strong, skilful young players who seem poised to hoover up a handful of All-Ireland medals over the next 10 years.

But although little fuss was made of it, winning the league probably mattered more to Kerry than we might think. It was important that, having established themselves as the most consistent team, they closed the deal having lost last year’s league final to Derry, the Munster final to Cork and the All-Ireland final to Kerry. Even for a squad of players who have handsomely exemplified the forbidding Kerry heritage throughout this decade, those successive losses must have been a shock to the system.

After Tyrone’s latest All-Ireland coup, all the talk about how this Kerry team compared to the godlike1970s/1980s vintage stopped abruptly. Since losing to the Red Hand in the scintillating All-Ireland final of 2005, Kerry could have been forgiven for believing they had broken free of their rivals, with back to back All-Irelands in 2006 and 2007. But suddenly, they were back at square one. As well as denying them a three-in-a-row, last year’s loss to Tyrone adds fuel to the suspicion that there is one team out there that Kerry simply cannot crack and that Tyrone have had the Indian sign on Kerry football dating back to that infamous semi-final of 2003.

It should be pointed out it took two teams to elevate the All-Ireland finals of ’05 and ’08 into the realms of classics. And Kerry fans can rightly take comfort from the fact their team were still pushing for a win in the breathtaking last few minutes of last year’s final.

Still, there was must have been something truly haunting for Kingdom fans about the absolute conviction with which the Tyrone men decided the issue at the end; Enda McGinley’s raised arm of triumph, after he carefully knocked over the point that pushed Tyrone into a clearing, is not an image Kerry folks will forget easily.

It promises to be a quick-slow-quick campaign for Kerry. They have to gear up for their Munster semi-final against Cork and should they win that, they will play three games in two months in order to make it to the All-Ireland final. But nothing goes absolutely according to plan. The recent news of Kieran Donaghy’s injury is bad news for Kerry and bad news for the championship. With Donaghy out until the later stages at best, it suddenly becomes critical that Darragh Ó Sé can yet again tap into the splendid reserve of heart and strength and his trademark high fielding for yet another summer.

But is it reasonable or realistic to hope that the Gaeltacht man can recapture the form of three summers ago? True, his return to the Kerry squad is designed to allow him to hit full stride at the peak of the championship but Ó Sé has regularly made fun of his own longevity on the inter-county circuit and regardless of his greatness and his desire, to be the dominant midfielder in the land at the age of 34 would be some achievement.

There are other question marks too. Right now, it would be hard to predict with absolute certainty what constitutes Kerry’s ideal fullback line. Although he was used sparingly in the league, there is a good chance Tadhg Kenneally will have a big impact on this championship. The big man may be rusty after his years spent kicking an oval ball but he is a supreme athlete and has made a living thriving on high octane match situations: it will be a surprise if O’Connor does not use Kennelly with typical imagination. They have myriad options in attack, plenty of grafters, they work like demons and, under O’Connor, they will have the added advantage of playing like a wounded team: the greatest gift O’Connor has brought to Kerry football has been his ability to make his squad feel angry about their lot so they always go out to play as if they had something to prove. This year, Kerry will be fast and intense and fascinating to watch.

But will they be good enough to win it? The most sensible answer is yes. They are clearly good enough to win it. There are substantial arguments to be made for all the other contenders. Soon, Croke Park will belong to the Dubs again and once they get on a roll, they ought to have the firepower to win Leinster and, pending the roll of the dice, could return to the last four.

It would be no great surprise if Dublin appeared in the All-Ireland final but getting to the big day may be as good it gets, for now anyway.

Derry should travel well under Damian Cassidy and are a good bet for the Ulster championship. What they do after that is anybody’s guess. Out west, Mayo and Galway is the flick of a coin and either county is capable of making a run.

Cork have considerable backing as All-Ireland title dark horses and do have the habit of just rising from the blue to claim one. After that there are a series of fundamentally sound teams – Monaghan, Kildare, Fermanagh, Armagh, Meath – capable of giving their fans some memorable days out. Nobody is expecting anything of Donegal so they will probably have a stunning season.

But try as you might, it is hard to look past Tyrone. They have gone into hibernation since September, sleep-walking through the league and, as usual, they start into this campaign with significant injury worries. Timing is Tyrone’s greatest fragility: increasingly, they run the risk of their engine cutting out before they reach full throttle. That may happen in Ulster this year – their early clash with Armagh could spin any way.

Last year, their season hinged not on their destruction of Dublin but on the previous match, when Mayo gave them a severely tough test that reminded them of who they were: it was the perfect match for them and it fell at the perfect time. This year the odds may not be so kind. It may be unfair to reduce this year’s championship to definitive meeting, at whatever point, between Kerry and Tyrone. But if they fail to meet, then the All-Ireland – and its audience – will have been robbed of the game of the year. Encore, Tyrone.