GAELIC GAMES:  It feels like a different planet with all the talk of the big three and the confrontation between Kerry and Ulster football, but a decade and a half ago the idea of a northern county in an All-Ireland final was novelty enough - never mind the notion of the province dominating the game.

During the long years of the Dublin-Kerry duopoly, the only shot at stardust the Ulster counties had was the once-every-three- years semi-final with the Connacht champions, and even that was of limited consolation.

From the time Down won the 1968 All-Ireland to the county's and province's next success 23 years later, only two Ulster teams featured in a senior football final: Armagh and Tyrone - as it happens - in 1977 and 1986.

The re-emergence of Ulster teams over the past 15 years hasn't unduly disrupted the image of Kerry as football's brand leader and by a considerable distance from the rest of the field. The county has maintained its average of an All-Ireland every three years since winning its first 100 years ago.

Accordingly, it's natural to view the coming final as a matter of Kerry against the rest. It's not David and Goliath, because Tyrone are too formidable to fit into that clichéd role, but there's certainly a perception that Tyrone - and by extension the Ulster power-plays perfected by them and Armagh - are putting it up to the aristocrats of the game.

This is a characterisation with which Kerry aren't entirely happy. Manager Jack O'Connor and his players were at pains to keep at arms' length the notion that this would be a grudge match for the champions. "It's not like they're giving two All-Irelands for this final," O'Connor laconically observed.

But there are deeper reasons for Kerry to be wary, aside from the quality of the challenge from a side that won the All-Ireland two years ago and aside from the disinclination to start talking up a vengeance agenda ahead of a match that will be hard enough without all of that.

The surprising fact is that Kerry, for all their domination of the game over a century, have always found Ulster opponents to be the most difficult when it comes to All-Ireland finals.

Counties from the north have a break-even statistical record over their eight All-Ireland finals against Kerry. That 50 per cent compares dramatically well with that of Connacht (29 per cent) and Leinster (36 per cent).

There are various ways of diminishing the impact of this. Maybe Ulster teams in the past had to be exceptionally good even to reach a final, and were therefore of a better quality than the average county team from other provinces.

This doesn't hold when compared to the record of Connacht counties, which despite a similar haul of All-Irelands, 14, and the same number of final wins over Kerry, four, shows over twice as many defeats at that stage of the championship.

Even if we leave aside the dry statistics of championship history, the anecdotal evidence is just as strong. Those finals in which Ulster counties have lost to Kerry are nearly all famous for the regret they left festering in the hearts of their supporters.

Obviously we can except the 1930 final in which Monaghan were beaten by 20 points, 0-2 to 3-11, a hammering - in all senses - so profound that there was a story about an old man cursed to live into his 90s who carried around the ignominy of having refused to take the field when ordered on as a replacement.

Ironically, that was as close as Monaghan got to an All-Ireland - and it was a good bit closer than you'd think. Dick Fitzgerald, the great Kerry footballer and author of the prototype-coaching manual in 1914, after whom the stadium in Killarney is named, died suddenly and tragically in the week leading up to the 1930 final.

As a result Kerry nearly pulled out of the final, which would have left Monaghan with the Sam Maguire.

Seven years later it took the county a replay to overcome the challenge of Cavan, and in 1953 Armagh missed a penalty at a vital stage of the second half, which would have pushed the match to an even tighter conclusion, although the consensus is that Kerry probably would have won anyway.

The only previous final meeting between this weekend's rivals was 19 years ago when Tyrone led by seven points at the start of the second half.

Kerry's comeback was so strong that they won by eight, but given that Tyrone were all but no-hopers going into the match, the lengths to which Mick O'Dwyer's team had to go were completely unexpected.

Scattered elsewhere in All-Ireland history are a couple of unusual results. The biggest shock of the then fledgling GAA's history occurred in 1912 when Antrim beat Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final. The embarrassed Munster champions were apparently recovering from a wedding.

Then, in 1958, Derry sprang another big Ulster surprise, catching Kerry with a late goal to reach their first All-Ireland final, which they lost to Dublin.

The above two matches would be valid inclusions in any top 10 football championship upsets, as are a couple of other Kerry defeats - which underlines the dangers of being so visibly identified as the top county in the game when unfancied opponents are firing themselves up for a shot at you.

In the 45 years since Down first broke Kerry in an All-Ireland final, there have been nine champions from Ulster. A relatively high two-thirds of those have beaten Kerry en route to their titles, which advances further evidence of the motivational powers of playing Kerry.

Those six counties include Ulster's recent successes Tyrone and Armagh.

History, of course, doesn't count for much once the ball is thrown in, but it's odd that Kerry, rather than their All-Ireland opponents, should be in a position to take comfort from such rational analysis.

e-mail: smoran@irish-times.ie