Kerry v Tyrone: Tom Humphries looks back at the 1986 final when the North was a different place and Kerry were chasing their three-in-a-row.

When Tyrone people reflect on 1986 they do so with the wistfulness of Scott thinking about Amundsen. Their expedition, their adventure was as taxing and dangerous as any before. They did everything right but came home empty- handed. They went back to their clubs and said it would just be a matter of time.

Five years later Down began a run of Ulster dominance which would bring All-Ireland titles to Donegal, Derry and Down again before Tyrone returned to Croke Park.

And when they returned in 1995 they bumped into a Dublin side whose desperation was even greater than theirs.

And so the heavy cloud of regret that hangs over 1986 never seems to lift. Even Armagh have won a first title since then.

You forget how sweet the auguries were and what a different place the North was then. Aidan McAnespie would be shot on his way to a GAA field in Tyrone the following year. Conditions were such that Tyrone came to town like crusaders rather than mere footballers. We talk often of the GAA and identity. Never was the link so pronounced.

And they had a right to expect. Two years earlier, in a memorable Ulster final, Frank McGuigan had put Armagh away on his own. Eleven points from play. In 1985, Frank's career was ended in a car crash, but hope survived. Eugene McKenna, playing at centre forward, was already legendary. Wing back Kevin McCabe and new midfielder Plunkett Donaghy had a cockiness about them which would serve well against the opposition, Kerry.

Ah, Kerry. Hunting the three-in-a-row, looking for the eighth All-Ireland since the O'Dwyer revolution in 1975. We thought back then that if we listened carefully we could hear them creaking. We wondered how they could have the appetite for more.

What Tyrone didn't need was the injuries. Northern teams would be a long time learning about the physical demands of Croke Park. John Lynch went off early in the second half. Injured. Eugene McKenna welcomed back an old knee injury and had to be replaced going into the last quarter. Minutes later Mickey Mallon had to go.

Art McRory had worked a kind of magic on Tyrone. They tore into Kerry with wanton disrespect, vandalising the reputations of grandees who had more medals than they had relatives to give them to. Jack O'Shea had to intervene in the small square early on to prevent a goal. The Kerry half forwards were back deep in their half with their hands on the pump.

Donaghy owned the midfield. Mickey Mullen scored four points from play in the first half. The sight of Jack O'Shea crashing an early penalty off the Tyrone crossbar heightened the belief that perhaps this would be a coup.

The seeds had been sown, however. McGuigan's car crash had deprived Tyrone of a fluent scorer in the full forward position. A prior injury of McKenna's was returning to haunt him, the Achilles tendon on his left leg complaining from early in the first half and reducing his mobility. And John Lynch, the burly blond corner back, would come off the worst from a challenge with Eoin Liston. The eventual loss of McKenna and Lynch would be critical.

Tyrone got to half-time with a three-point lead and the knowledge that McKenna was ailing. After 45 seconds of the second half it didn't seem to matter.

It unravels like old newsreel. A short sideline ball to Plunkett Donaghy, whose marker is some yards away lying on the ground. Donaghy does what he has been doing all day, he gets rid of it quickly, finding Damian O'Hagan, something of a media celebrity that year having spent some time in Long Kesh. O'Hagan smuggles to Paudge Quinn just, as luck would have it, Páidí Ó Sé takes the wrong option and smothers O'Hagan. Quinn and Charlie Nelligan collide but the ball makes it to the net. Not lovely, but a six-point lead nonetheless.

It seemed that two things could happen now. Tyrone could put Kerry away. Kerry could start playing.

On three minutes we thought we had the answer. McKenna, struggling badly with his injury but critical to the cause, had been moved to full forward. His reputation was enough to cause widespread panic in the Kerry defence any time the ball came near him, so when he caught a high ball so soon after the Tyrone goal he found three Kerry defenders converging upon him with various degrees of respect for the legal requirements of tackling. And from somewhere beneath them he could hear the referee's whistle.

Penalty. The chance to go nine points ahead! Nine points with half an hour left.

The plan then would be obvious. Contain for the next 10 minutes and then pick off the odd score as Kerry came and came.

Kevin McCabe stepped up to take the penalty. He'd scored one in the semi-final. He had more than his share of the confidence which Tyrone had brought south with them. He swept his shot over the bar and into the Canal End. There was slight confusion.

Had he knocked it over for a point deliberately? Had he missed? His shot had the appearance of being intended as a point. Maybe Tyrone were getting ready to circle the wagons.

McCabe had been shooting for goal. The miss would be costly. His point put Tyrone seven points ahead.

Then Pat Spillane exploded. Spillane considers that game to be the best of his 10 final appearances. You would have to search hard to find 35 minutes of football better than what Spillane gave in that second half. To rub salt into things, he was being marked by Kevin McCabe.

Kerry tore up the pitch and Spillane tacked a point onto Kerry's total. Back to six points. Spillane's third point of the day. A couple of minutes later and it seemed as if Spillane's energy would cause him to burst into flames were it not dissipated through football. He started a move and then burst 50 yards through the Tyrone defences to take possession from Ger Power and score a heartbreaker of a goal. Three points in it.

Mikey Sheehy and Mickey McClure swopped points, and then six minutes after the Spillane goal Sheehy was the beneficiary of Ger Power's largesse. Another Kerry goal. Level. That's all she wrote.

The rest was sad and processional. Tyrone scored just one more point. Kerry kept adding on happily. Nine more points. Eight of them from play. Tyrone's fight left them. Kerry won at a canter and they were crowned the greatest team of all time.

Tomorrow it's a little different, but not much. Enough to reverse that result? Who knows?

Tyrone come with their luggage brimming with promise and expectation.

Kerry have the superior experience and possibly more quality in the forwards.

In Peter Canavan, however, Tyrone have the player who might score 11 from play, and the evidence against Roscommon suggests that Kerry have the defence which might let him. And northern teams who can punch their weight are no longer a novelty. Three of them have planted the flag for the first time since in the years since 1986.

Yet again, though, Tyrone make the journey.