Seán Moran on how the Kingdom have had to face new powers and tactical innovation before, as in the 1955 final against revamped Dublin

Such is the scale of Kerry's dominance of football the county can occasionally succumb to a temptation to turn the All-Ireland roll of honour into a latticework of pleasingly symmetrical patterns.

There was, for instance, some grumbling about the presumptuousness of this when two years ago talk within the county let it be known they would quite fancy marking the centenary of their first All-Ireland title by winning a 33rd.

In fact, next month is the precise centenary of that first win, as, in keeping with the chaotic administrative conventions of the time, the 1903 championship didn't conclude until October 1905, but it remains a proud boast in the county that they manage to win so many "significant" All-Irelands, such as the millennium title of five years ago and the GAA centenary title of 1984.

Nonetheless, anniversaries are sometimes quite meaningful. This year's All-Ireland final will be played tomorrow week precisely 50 years to the day after the 1955 final, with which it has much in common.

Kerry's constant presence at the top of the game - the county has averaged an All-Ireland every three years since its first - means that new teams and their tactical innovations generally have to test themselves against the game's greatest force.

Next weekend, Kerry play out an eagerly awaited All-Ireland with Tyrone. It promises to be more than a simple clash between the two most recent champions.

Since Armagh won the county's first All-Ireland three years ago there has been plenty of focus on the structural reasons why Ulster football is so strong.

Coaching, high-performance centres and advanced methods of preparation have all been mentioned, but to the football public at large there is a more abiding perception, that of a physically punishing brand of football based on possession and running and a game plan that prioritises massed numbers at the back and counterattacking to an extent that would have been unthinkable in years gone by.

So, this year's final is a challenge to Kerry, made all the more pointed by memories of what happened between the teams when they last met in the championship - the All-Ireland semi-final of two years ago.

Although no one should get too carried away by the 2003 precedent - Kerry were running on empty in Páidí Ó Sé's last season of management and had sustained debilitating defeats in the previous two years - tomorrow week is seen as a culture clash, and as such, it is only the latest of the football style wars Kerry have fought during their history.

It most resembles the final of 50 years ago. Dublin came to that final with two major claims to fame - the county team comprised for the first time 15 players who were Dubliners rather than city residents from other counties, and the team played an unorthodox possession game with Kevin Heffernan as a roving full forward.

This wasn't by any means the only challenge to traditional modes of football, and Kerry for most of the 20th century were the keepers of tradition's flame.

Maybe it was because the county were so successful that they adhered to tried and tested tactics, but a more likely reason was that for six decades the biggest influence on Kerry football was one man, Dr Eamonn O'Sullivan, who took the county to eight All-Irelands between 1924 and 1962.

O'Sullivan was the high priest of catch-and-kick. In 1958 he wrote The Art and Science of Gaelic Football, a coaching treatise that laid out his firm views on fixed-position play.

Writing about a full back's duties, O'Sullivan laid down the following stricture: "The positioning of the full back calls for exceptional treatment. The remaining five backs are required to provide coverage at all times of their respective forwards even when that entails trailing them to other sectors. The full back, however, must maintain close coverage of his forward only within his allotted sector."

This philosophy had its greatest hour three years previously in the 1955 final.

Fifty years ago the country was caught up in the first instance of what we would recognise as All-Ireland hype. There was no television, but the broadcast radio and print media reflected the huge interest that was building among followers of the game.

So many people turned up in London's Euston Station for the Holyhead boat train on the weekend of the match that an extra train had to be provided. The crowd remains the third-biggest ever to attend an All-Ireland and given the gates were thrown open, it's likely the official attendance of 87,102 was exceeded.

Kerry were genuinely intrigued by the notion of an all-Dublin team, as opposed to the largely flag-of-convenience sides that used to represent the capital, and enthusiastic about pitting their traditional style against the modern stratagems of what was generally referred to as "the Dublin machine".

The match didn't meet its outsize expectations and Kerry won comfortably, although a late goal cut Dublin's deficit to three points and triggered a frantic conclusion.

Heffernan, who had been instrumental in the devastation of then All-Ireland champions Meath in the Leinster final when full back Paddy O'Brien had no answer to his opponent's mobile game, was unable to wield the expected influence.

Kerry's corner backs Jerome O'Shea and Mick Palmer played so well that there was little space to exploit and full back Ned Roche was able to concentrate on an unusually static Heffernan, who in an interview with this newspaper in February of last year recalled the disappointment.

No defeat as a manager ever hit me like 1955. That was the first time there. It was Kerry. I had great hopes and so on and so on. That formed a large part of what I became as a person.

It wasn't the first time that Kerry had crushed innovation. Nine years previously Antrim came out of Ulster with a slick, fast, hand-passing game only to - literally - run into trouble.

Breandán Ó hEithir recorded in Over the Bar the current of outrage that buzzed around the GAA after the All-Ireland semi-final between Antrim and Kerry.

"It was one of the disgraces of the forties," was his account of the match and the manner in which it had been covered.

The late Micheál O'Hehir was noted for his employment of euphemism during radio commentaries and on this occasion uttered the immortal phrase; "People are booing and I can't for the life of me see why."

O'Hehir wrote later that year in his own publication Spotlight on Sport: "The crowd did not like much of the Kerry defence methods, the pulling down of players and the like, but frankly, while I am very strongly opposed to such tactics, I thought the booing was carried a little too far."

Essentially what was happening was that Kerry targeted the runner rather than the carrier and the player moving into position to take the pass was being taken out of it.

Antrim tried to object to their defeat on the grounds that Kerry had brought the game of football into disrepute. They didn't succeed, but had a fair bit of support in the 19-10 decision. Ulster had the last word, though. O'Sullivan's orthodoxies came under attack once more at the start of the 1960s and this time the challenge was insurmountable.

Down were proficient in the traditional skills, but scorned the zonal game and ran attacking lines from anywhere and everywhere. They also targeted Mick O'Connell's legendary ability in the air not by contesting with him but by breaking the ball whenever they could and being ultra-competitive on those breaks.

Of the two epoch-making championship matches, the 1961 All-Ireland semi-final is probably the most similar to next week's All-Ireland. Just as Kerry will feel there were extenuating circumstances in 2003 against Tyrone so 44 years ago the county felt there had been a lot of misfortune in the 1960 final.

Kerry had injuries and Down's critical goal came early in the second half when Jim McCartan lobbed a ball into the air and Johnny Culloty (now one of Jack O'Connor's selectors) appeared to lose the ball in the sun.

In the event, there was no revenge for Kerry as Down gave what is regarded as the team's best display of the era in Croke Park. One opponent that day less than impressed by the new wave from Ulster was Mick O'Dwyer, who recalled more than 10 years later: "I think Down did a lot of damage to Gaelic football. They broke the ball a lot and they played it very close and marked tightly.

"They weren't playing the ball that much, but they played the man quite a lot. I suppose it paid dividends for them. They fouled men in the centre of the field - and won All-Irelands with it. But it was not a good thing for the game."

Yet, Dwyer knew what way the wind was blowing. By abandoning strict, fixed-position theory and blending the transfer and possession games he fused a style that brought Kerry their most dominant phase in history and elevated him, with eight All-Irelands, on to the same lofty plain as Dr O'Sullivan.

Jack O'Connor follows in that line next weekend. In the immediate term he's bidding for the first back-to-back All-Ireland sequence in 15 years, but also in the longer term for the traditions of Kerry football. Tyrone are formidable opponents, but history is just as demanding.