Maybe it's the company I've been keeping but I couldn't help but notice an ABM (EC) tendency amongst the Irish sporting public these past few days, in the build-up to tomorrow's All-Ireland football final. ABM (EC)? Anyone But Meath (Even Cork). So much so I reckon all Sean Boylan has to say to his men tomorrow afternoon, before they take to the field at Croke Park, is "Lads? The whole country's against ye, so go out and win just to brown them off". And what greater motivation could a team ever want?

Larry Tompkins may well be able to say "Lads? I have mass cards here from Mayo, Dublin, Kildare, Armagh, Down, Offaly and Galway and the other 24 counties are all in Medjugorge praying for ye, so go out and win just to make them happy", but that's hardly in the same motivational category.

It's the old "no one likes us, but we don't care" approach that, to my knowledge, was born at Millwall Football Club and was later perfected by Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.

While reading his autobiography recently it struck me that his belief that the whole world was out to get him (from the cradle upwards) became the very cornerstone upon which his success at United was built. It took him a while but once he had convinced his players that every single section of the media, every other club, every other clubs' supporters, every other clubs' groundsmen, every referee, the English Football Association, the United Nations, Buckingham Palace, Downing Street and NATO were conspiring to deny United even a hint of success they went on to win all around them.

True, his youth policy and the signing of a few half decent players helped, but think of Paul Ince, Eric Cantona, Peter Schmeichel, Mark Hughes, Roy Keane and David Beckham. All of them greeted success with a "shove that down your pipe and smoke it" grin, because their manager had persuaded them that they had defied two thirds of the planet's population to win their medals (the other third being United supporters). Even Teddy Sheringham. Just about his first utterance after May's European Cup final was to promise to parade around North London (home of Arsenal fans, who had given him a hard time since his move to United) with his winner's medal around his neck. Luckily he resisted the temptation because not only would he have parted company with his medal he would have lost his neck too.

So it's easy enough to motivate your players if everyone's against them (or if they THINK everyone's against them), it's trickier to fire them up if everyone's against their opponents. At a time like that you need Phil Bennett, the former Welsh rugby captain, whose gem of a speech before Wales's 1977 Five Nations' meeting with England in Cardiff was recalled by Robert Philip in last Monday's Daily Telegraph.

"Look at what these bastards have done to Wales. They've taken our coal, our steel, our water. They buy up all our houses then only live in them for a fortnight a year. We've been exploited, raped, controlled and punished by the English - and that's who you're playing this afternoon."

Mmm. I don't have any vivid recollections of the game but I suspect there were a few crunching tackles in the opening moments. Perhaps Larry could try a variation on the theme tomorrow - "Look at what these lousers have done to Cork. . .they buy up all our houses in Skibbereen, Schull and Baltimore then only live in them for a fortnight a year". That might work. It mightn't work, though, for Europe's Ryder Cup captain Mark James, because he'll have to think of atrocities inflicted by America on England, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, France AND Spain, although he could mention Whitney Houston and Michael Bolton just to get his lads angry before the crucial closing stages of the competition.

Second only to Phil Bennett's speech in the `fire 'em up before you send 'em out' category is one from an old D'Unbelievables sketch when `Glengooly' trainer Jimmy Ryan got his players in to the mood before taking on the `Bally boys' in a repeat of the 1949 county final.

"Lads when you're out there today would ye think of '49 and think of what happened on that day because, we all know lads, the Bullock Doody had his leg bitten off in the small parallelogram, from the knee down. But lads, the Bullock played away with his stump and a half, he scored a goal and four points and lost a gallon of blood."

"We never got the Bullock's leg back, his sock back, his boot back, that Bally crowd kept the whole feckin' lot, so gentlemen when you go out there today - and I'm not a man to bear a grudge - think of the Bullock, think of '49."

Ryan concluded his speech by saying "Ye're sitting there thinking `Jimmy Ryan is too hard on us' - well I tell you something I'm NOT, ye'll know all about it next year when ye're playing under-14."

We never did hear but one assumes that Glengooly got the better of the Bally Boys in that county final, more out of fear of facing Jimmy Ryan at full time than for any desire to avenge the loss of Bullock Doody's leg. Motivation is everything, after all. Then again it's hard to imagine that the players in tomorrow's All-Ireland final will need much motivating at all. If they do, Sean and Larry, just mention the ABM (EC) crowd and the holiday homes in Skibbereen.