A couple of years ago those five words were a synonym for thunder, the roll call for a 30 man slam dance, an invitation to rumble. This week? Derry and Tyrone in Clones is marginally the most attractive game on a light football fixture list.
What drawing magnetism tomorrow's game offers derives from the suspicion that Derry won't let Tyrone best them for a third year in succession, from the hope that both teams can up their performance levels and turn a dowdy Ulster summer into something spangled by at least one great game.
Then again advertisements for last year's corresponding feature carried the same alluring catch lines. Derry v Tyrone. This time it's personal, etc, etc. Derry surely wouldn't stand for another humiliation like that visited upon them in 1995 when 13 Tyrone men recovered from a halftime deficit and won by a point.
Yet a stern faced Derry side surrendered again last summer and Tyrone got to Croke Park in August, patted their pockets and found their momentum missing. Some of the fire had gone out of Ulster.
This time round, approaching high summer of 1997, neither Derry nor Tyrone look entirely convincing. No head of steam blowing up from either camp. For the neutral the attraction to the terrace is sentiment and the possibility that one or other side might just cross the Rub icon on Sunday and come out on the far bank looking like potential champions again. In a year which looks like being far from vintage, either team could still conceivably end up with an All Ireland. You just wouldn't want to put money on the possibility.
Tyrone are still in the championship after three unconvincing mid gear performances. Derry were so distracted on their first outing against Monaghan that they felt justifiably lucky to have woken up in time to salvage the situation. Their replay performance in Celtic Park carried enough positive auguries to make them quietly confident about tomorrow if their younger players can clear paths for themselves through the chaos and Anthony Tohill can assert himself.
Tyrone and Derry have had their stride hindered by many things, most recently in the case of both counties, by tragic deaths. The absence from Clones tomorrow of Sean Brown and Paul McGirr puts some perspective on football in a province where broader tribal passions have often been sluiced into what for the rest of the country was sometimes only a game.
It isn't just Tyrone and Derry who have suffered, however.
Ulster football is in temporary recession. For the first time since 1992, the All Ireland football final lacked a northern presence last year. This spring no Ulster team made it as far as the National League semifinals. It is true that an Ulster team, Crossmaglen of Armagh, won the All Ireland club championship, but people have long ceased to wonder at Armagh's refusal to be lifted by any footballing tide.
Sean McCague and Pete McGrath, whose respective Monaghan and Down sides have been beaten in replays this summer by tomorrow's contestants, concede that Ulster football appears to be in a state of decline this summer. The white heat has gone out of the business.
"There has been a poorer standard of play this year," says McGrath. "I don't think the quality has been that good. In our games against Tyrone, I though we got the championship off to an adequate start, especially in the first game, but generally the season has been very mundane. There is no real sense of occasion."
McCague concurs.
"I think there has been a levelling off of standards. Probably in a downward way. Perhaps if you speak to people in the three counties remaining in the competition they'll be happy enough with the standard, but I would say that winning has become more important than performance. We haven't seen any football of the quality produced by Meath and Dublin and, generally, it has to be said, expectations in Ulster aren't as high this year."
There is a curious lack of intensity about this summer's Ulster championship. So far the season hasn't been punctuated by any great afternoons. Back in the glory years, bookended by two Down All Irelands in 1991 and 1994, the leading contenders in the province all revolved around core groups of players who were in their prime. This summer the spread of talent is more even and the age distribution of leading teams is more varied. Lots of players who are a little stale mixing it with lots of players who are a little green.
"I noticed in our games against Derry for instance," says McCague, "that the personnel had changed. A few years ago we had nobody to match players like Brian McGilligan and Tony Scullion. We didn't have big, hugely experienced players like that.
This year they weren't there. We could match them in most players and a young player like Mark Daly, an under 21 could be quite important to us."
Most observers in the province are confident that on a macro level the games have never been healthier. Better youth coaching, greater numbers and improved facilities are the benchmarks of the game's general well being. Yet at senior inter county level the province hasn't yet enjoyed the spin offs from a period of ascendancy.
"We in Down would be the most acute example," Pete McGrath, "having come from nowhere to win in 1991 and having followed that up in 1994 we haven't seen the younger players coming through in the waves we would have expected since then. The benefits haven't materialised in terms of us having a choice of a number of potential high quality players. The other counties haven't had the same problem to the same extent, but nobody has found instant replacements."
There has, of course, been an inevitable levelling of standards, not just between teams in Ulster but between the province and the rest of the country. Connacht, which appeared just a few years ago to lag significantly behind the other three provinces, still nurses the wounds from an All Ireland it perceives itself to have thrown away.
Tomorrow's Mayo Leitrim clash carries all the more spice for involving two sides who don't appear to have reached the top of their potential yet. Derry and Tyrone, on the other hand, haven't given conclusive evidence this season as to which direction they are travelling in.
"History would show us that no province can remain totally dominant," says McCague. There hasn't been any period of true dominance since the great Kerry team. Mayo would look at themselves this summer and see themselves as being on the brink. Kerry would be a team coming off a National League and most people would see them as having huge potential.
"Meanwhile, Tyrone and Derry have doubts over them. There would be concern that even with a new manager Tyrone might just be a little stale this year after two provincial titles. They have brought back old faces rather than found new ones. Derry have some new faces who aren't experienced enough yet and the older guys you'd think would be looking at themselves seriously if they lose on Sunday."
Perhaps Ulster, by virtue of being ahead of the country in the first half of the decade, is ahead of the country also in harvesting the whirlwind. Fitness levels have improved across the board. There is a general consensus that skill levels haven't improved accordingly, though.
"I think all teams are fitter now," says McCague. "Base levels of fitness and preparation have levelled out everywhere. All teams are far more meticulous then they used to be. Skill hasn't improved, though. It comes back to winning being more important than performance. Teams send their best players out to play and their weaker players out to stop others playing. There aren't any teams with 15 truly skilful players. As a result we get a lot of the pulling and dragging we have seen this summer. That would be a depressing trend."
Both men have a quiet fancy for Tyrone tomorrow on the basis of their experience and their traditional ability to manipulate Anthony Tohill to the fringes of a game. They speak of Tyrone having potential for improvement. Neither is sanguine about the prospects of a great game or an Ulster day out in September.
Derry v Tyrone in Clones. Right ingredients. Wrong sell by dates. It should taste better.
