Book/Jack O'Connor:In this extract from his new book, Keys to the Kingdom, Jack O'Connorrelives the drama, pressure and excitement of last summer - from the depressing lows of Páirc Uí Chaoimh to the extraordinary highs of Croke Park

The sweetest day. Armagh had us on the run in the first half. Standing on the sideline, it struck me early on that the football Armagh were playing was like something out of a coaching manual. McGeeney going back, cutting out the ball to Donaghy and coming out, delivering good ball. O'Rourke doing damage in the half forwards. Some of the best football I've ever seen.

The long diagonal ball works so well for them. I wandered the perimeter of the pitch, went behind the goal and looked upfield at one stage. Scary. Clarke and McDonnell were just flicking it. They have such telepathy. I came back to the bench and said to the lads that we had to tighten everything up back there. There's six or seven years of playing relationship going on in there with McDonnell and Clarke and it's frightening.

On sideline I consulted with the selectors. That's one tough spot in there. We have to do something. We moved Marc out off McDonnell. Put Tom O'Sullivan back. Tom is such a laid-back bastard that nothing will faze him and we wanted Marc more in the game.

We tried to get Moynihan back to give cover. He dropped off McEntee, and what happened? McEntee lamped a point. Tommy Griffin was supposed to come back on McEntee. When McEntee scored his point, Moynihan cut his losses and went back out. So we had to let a half forward come back to midfield in order to allow Tommy Griffin to drop on to McEntee. In the second half we got it right. It worked.

We spoke at half-time about getting Moynihan back. Other fellas were to get a hand on McEntee. It's a case of tinkering with it all the time, tweaking it as we go. Only as the year has gone on have we got the system going where we can play Moynihan to his strengths. Once Séamus committed to the sweeping job, naturally he became brilliant at it. Joe Brolly picked it up in the analysis on the telly.

Marc had a brilliant second half in which he kicked two of the best points any back has ever kicked in Croke Park. Between those two points Tomás kicked one as well. Extraordinary men.

Darragh got a huge foothold in the middle. Galvin was tackling like a lunatic. He'd just turned them over for a point when another one of his turnovers led to Donaghy's goal, the score that swung the whole match.

Donaghy had been doing well on the legendary Bellew, but not thriving. They were letting McGeeney come back to double-team him, but McGeeney was tiring. Donaghy wasn't getting any decisions and he was bellyaching a bit to the umpire. Paul Hearty, the Armagh goalie, was giving Donaghy a hard time, too. A big lank from basketball suddenly all over the papers? What else would you expect.

Late in the first half Gooch had a goal chance saved by Hearty. It led to a point by Franny. It took a bit of the sting out of Armagh. We got level, and then Donaghy's goal . . .

When Galvin turned it over, the ball came across to Seán O'Sullivan, who hit the perfect diagonal ball in to Donaghy. The trick with Donaghy has been getting the ball to him in basketball situations. On the hardwood he receives the ball with his back to the hoop and makes his move, driving in hard. He does just that now.

There's a memory, the story of the whole season. Francie Bellew on the ground behind Donaghy, the ball flying to the Armagh net past poor Hearty. Donaghy in Hearty's face with the immortal words, "who's crying now, baby"!

Donaghy's goal was a statement. Sticking the head into the cúl báire's face. Most of the time I'd try to keep myself calm on the sideline, but I let an old yahoo when I saw Donaghy. It felt like being set free.

Towards the end, when Paul Galvin lost his head and got sent off, I could see it slipping away from us. At the time the linesman on our side of the field seemed able to point the flag in only one direction. We were getting a bit wired up. There was an incident where John Toal, Armagh's maor uisce, appeared to provoke Galvin. The red mist descended and Galvin got stuck in by way of reply.

We were three points up. Three points up, with 12 minutes to go. Armagh came back and kicked another point quickly. Ten minutes to go and Armagh are a man up and it's their kind of scenario. We'll know now if all that we've been through has made a team of us again. This is what a season comes down to for any serious team. A time when the big question is asked.

The answer explodes out of us. All the shit and frustration is blown out in those last 10 minutes. It's all working now. Fellas coming back, covering, busting their guts. I look at Eoin Brosnan shadowing Paddy McKeever out to the end line, and when they get to the border of the pitch he fucks McKeever out over the end line. Men back working hard and fellas up front winning the ball. Aidan O'Mahony thundering into things.

It's all unfolding in front of the eyes. Declan is on as a sub in the full-forward line and we can all see he's back on track. Bryan Sheehan kicks a great free to put us three up. Then, near the end, Darren O'Sullivan takes off. We knew that someday he was going to do this with his pace, and the day is now. He just burns through and scores a brilliant goal.

Altogether we score 1-3 without reply and end up winning the game by eight points. That maybe flatters us, but who cares? When it's over I should go to Joe Kernan and shake his gentleman's hand, but in the emotion of it all I take off for Darragh Ó Sé. All the raméis about us having an "altercation" in Tatlers has made me feel close to him, and he was brilliant today, outplaying the other great midfielder of the decade, Paul McGrane. First thing he says to me is, "Get the boys ready for Cork".

Funny thing is, Cork are only just coming out on to the pitch to play Donegal. But Darragh knows it's going to be Cork.

Back home again. We have a great and giddy week of training after Armagh. When you are winning games, your studs leave no marks in the ground. You just glide over everything. I watch the video of the game at least 10 times, and it gets better each time. Our first taste of Croke Park this year and we put a lot of ghosts behind us.

There was a lot of emotion on the pitch and in the dressingroom afterwards. I did an interview with Marty Morrissey. He was asking about trouble in camp. I was going to go into the angry old spiel, denying it all, but I just asked Marty what was wrong with fellas drawing a few clips on each other. Sure, that's what we're looking for!

We have Cork in our sights now - they did beat Donegal - and that's exactly the sort of game that we are looking for. If Donegal had beaten Cork I can't imagine the anticlimax it would have been for us. We want to give them a dose of our new system, let them get the backlash from our new sense of purpose. Nothing that happened in the previous two games will matter if we give them a decent beating in Croke Park.

You can see the confidence that winning brings to a team, especially to forwards. Gooch is a new man. Mike Frank is flying. On the Friday after Armagh we have a game in Fitzgerald Stadium among ourselves. The forwards move better than at any time in three years. They are awesome. They've suddenly realised it's all there for them.

I spoke to Ger Loughnane during the week. We met a year or so ago at a coaching conference in Tullamore. It was Ger who first introduced me to the idea of controlled aggression. He's an interesting man and I like to keep in contact and touch base with him. He'd had an article in the paper, talking about the hurling semi-final and how Clare would get hyped up to prove their critics wrong. Bad energy, he said. There's a bit of something in what Loughnane says.

Of course, it's vital to concentrate on your own game, to play with steely focus and ruthlessness. That's what we're trying to do now. But shoving it to a few people along the way will be nice.

We have plenty of enemies still. We'll be well motivated for a while, using our good energy and our bad energy. Paul Galvin, for instance, has another name to add to his black book. He has been vilified. Joe Brolly had a cut at him on the television after the Armagh game, called him a corner boy and mentioned that he was a teacher. Brolly enjoys a good line, but this crossed a different sort of line.

Paul Byrne, the producer of The Sunday Game, was in touch. I think he was afraid we would withdraw our cooperation from RTÉ. We could easily have done. That was the feeling. Brolly was out of order. Galvin is playing a game; bringing his profession into any criticism was wrong. At this stage my old sparring partner Pat Spillane rang me. We talked, and Spillane gave Paul Galvin a bit of a break on the telly. We let it rest.

Meanwhile, Darragh wants to make a statement against Cork's Nicholas Murphy. So far this season Murphy has caused us as much trouble as any other single player. Darragh didn't actually spend too many minutes playing directly on Murphy in either of the games because Murphy was playing on the 40, coming out to midfield when needed, and that was bothering us because the match-ups weren't right. After those first two games against Cork, there was an inaccurate perception out there that Murphy had outplayed Darragh twice. Every bone in Darragh's body wants Murphy now.

And personally I want to put one over on that other old buddy of mine, Billy Morgan, who's been bellyaching since the depths of winter about the sort of team we are. I think in his heart Billy will know now that the game is up. We've turned a corner. A third game is one too far for Cork. I hope so.

Things aren't good between us. I respect Morgan, but I think he sees me as a young manager that he can turn the heat up on. I didn't go into their dressingroom in Páirc Uí Chaoimh after they beat us in the replay. I didn't see Billy in our dressingroom either (but then again, I didn't see the Ó Sés vanish out the door). I shook his hand at the end of the game. There's a famous picture. He's grinning. I look like I'm shaking hands, but not feeling too good about the idea.

Play it as it lies! It's as if the whole thing has been scripted. Cork pulled their blatant stroke when they should have taken their beating on the Anthony Lynch issue in the drawn game. I remember looking at the mark on Donaghy's face when he came to training the following Tuesday and asking him if he was sure it wasn't the girlfriend, Hilary, that had hit him a poke the previous night. It must have been because, through some miracle of camerawork, Cork managed to "prove" that it was only an attempted strike on Donaghy.

We felt very aggrieved. Anthony Lynch off playing in the replay, with Donaghy sitting in the stands. Now when we get Cork back to Croke Park we will be running out saying that by Jesus, Billy, if you're going to brand us for being cynical we might as well be hung for sheep as for lambs.

Karma. Donaghy getting sent off in the drawn match in Cork was a blessing for us. We got Tommy Griffin going. Donaghy might never have escaped from midfield but for that. Cork have had no luck since. Canty twisted his knee and is gone for the season. He's a huge loss to them.

For Sunday we've discussed our approach as a team. Morgan is still putting that fierce heat on referees, talking about us being cynical, etc. Refs will be reading this and saying, "these guys are absolute lunatics".

We've decided in the end that, instead of going into our shell, as Morgan is hoping, we'll play right to the line. Our style will be - go to the point of fighting without actually fighting. There's a big difference.

Controlled fury is what we will hit Cork with. Some of our players can't play effectively any other way. That's Paul Galvin at his best. Darragh Ó Sé is the same. Right to the wire. Right to the borderline. In the Cork game they'll set the tone. Beating Cork in Croke Park in another big game (13 points in 2005, 15 in '02) will send them home with a huge amount of self-doubt in their heads. That'd be a decent season's work in itself.

Our objective is to get the lads playing with the relentless aggression we had after Donaghy's goal. John Corcoran has a piece in The Kerryman about what Cork will do to us. Thank you, John! Is binn béal ina thost!

The enthusiasm is everywhere. One evening, Franny and Gooch, Seán O'Sullivan and Donaghy come in to train on their own. Two of them kicking frees at one end of the stadium; Seán kicking long balls to Donaghy at the other end.

And Declan is working hard, too. After what happened in Páirc Uí Chaoimh he stepped back and decided he was going to work this out. I asked him, did he want sessions with Declan Coyle, but he has decided that there is only one way to move forward. He is going to prove it to himself and to the team. It would have cracked another young fella, what he went through, but Declan is meeting it head-on.

He's actually given up his job. He was working for Powerade on the road, and the job was taking him to Tipp and Limerick and other far-flung places during the day. He felt it was taking a lot out of him that he could be putting into his football. He packed it all in, shortly after the second Cork game, and just vowed he'd do whatever it took. He's been phenomenal to watch. He's applied himself inside in training. We can see he has found his form.

Meanwhile, the lad is just living on what money he had saved. He has gone at football with a vengeance, looking to prove himself all over again to everybody. I've asked him a couple of times, did he need anything, but he has been determined to work it out on his own. Darragh in particular has been very supportive to Declan. He'd say quietly to him after matches or training to keep working away, that it was going all right. I know this meant a lot to Declan. The opinions of the other players are what matter most in a situation like this, and Darragh is a huge figure to have encouraging you.

I don't know if earlier in the season there were any words between players about Declan's form. Declan would see himself as a 40-yard man, and the players would have known that. He was playing too deep when he was full forward, not offering a target. I wasn't blind to that. I could see the ball wasn't sticking in there, and it was frustrating.

To compensate, Declan was doing what a player who grows up as a star in a small club will sometimes do. He was overcarrying the ball, taking too much out of it.

Declan got a harder kick than most players will ever receive in their lives. I know the booing was meant for me when he was taken off in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, but that didn't make it any easier for a young man captaining his county. He came back, though, he gave up his work, he trained hard, he never looked for favours from me or from anywhere else. He never bellyached to newspapers or chat rooms. There were no rumours about him.

He played his football on the B team in training games and he regained the faith of his team-mates. When you've been through the toxic summer that these fellas have been through, all that matters is the group who are inside the dressingroom when the door is shut.

The people who booed in Páirc Uí Chaoimh only get to see what happens on the pitch. If it doesn't go as we had all hoped, it's my fault. If they could see what they did to a young player and if they could see the dignity and courage he has brought into fighting back, they'd be ashamed of themselves now.

Declan won't start against Cork, but he'll come on and play a part and have his chance to audition for the final. He deserves that. For character and for his play. And for all that we've been through together. Jer O'Shea can expect a call from his old friends.

For the game with Cork we have a new mantra. We're setting targets. Especially for the defence. We have to concede no more than five points a half. If the defence comes anywhere near those targets, I'm confident that the forwards will be cutting up down the far end.

Declan Coyle told me once that I should always speak to the soul of the team. He said that most of what managers say to players doesn't register with them. Only the passion and the demeanour seep through to the soul. In my first year, Kerry's soul was shrivelled from three years of beatings and criticism. We found a way through that because my voice was a novelty.

Last year we were on different pages. It was like trying to speak to somebody in a coma. They wanted to get better. I wanted them better. But there was no way of knowing if my words were even getting into their heads. As a team we tried to force things. We wanted it badly, but not badly enough to burn the boats, not as badly as Tyrone did.

Now, though, we have been in the heat all summer. We've taken the worst in terms of the pressure cooker. We haven't cracked. At last again, when I speak to the team, I feel that every ear in the room is absorbing a little bit of what I say. There's stuff getting through to the soul. We enjoy being together. I feel that we've grown.

Take Darragh. Darragh has been happy this year. I don't know if it's the fact that he's getting married or that he has a new business, but he's happy in himself. I happened to be lucky in the Hayfield Manor that I was walking behind him on the way in and could ask him to carry the meeting. He'd played well. He was the king. He's a competitive hoor and the team love him and respect him for it.

By now I've learned that no team and no manager marches through the season to Croke Park. You tap-dance all the way. Not treading on this. Not splashing that. I read a book this year called End the Struggle and Dance with Life. In three years I've learned to dance like Astaire.

Kerry 0-16, Cork 0-10.

There was a moment early in the second half when Cork were three points down. They still had a chance to catch us and draw us into a dog-fight. They looked odds-on to score a goal. Conor McCarthy had the ball on the edge of the square and he looked up for the hand-pass to Kevin McMahon, who was wide open and screaming for the ball.

I was wondering where the cover was. We'd worked so hard on this over two weeks, and a goal for Cork at this stage would mean that our targets would be shot. Psychologically, I didn't know what damage that would do.

The ball never got to McMahon's fingers, though. Séamus Moynihan exploded out of nowhere, clutching the ball to his gut, looking no different than he did when he was 22 or 23. And a great roar went up from the green and gold in the stands. Maybe we're convincing them at last.

Getting through to a third All-Ireland final in three years would be enough convincing for any other county. I'd say Billy Morgan has gone home convinced. Billy was banished to the stand today for disciplinary reasons, and at one stage when a picture of his face came up on the big screen he looked so worried that there was a cheer from the Kerry fans.

Going into the game, I knew we'd do a good job setting the tone. We had let Cork set the tone for us before. We'd just walked out on to the pitch and waited to see what they had to offer. Darragh set the mood this time. He horsed into Nicholas Murphy from the start. And Galvin! Galvin was awesome. His best display ever of winning breaking ball. He was wired to the moon with passion. At one stage Galvin won four or five breaking balls in a row, driving in like a demented man. I don't know what page Joe Brolly occupies in the black book, but thanks, Joe.

Galvin and Darragh are at the centre of everything. Darragh would have seen what was written all summer about his clashes with Nicholas Murphy as a big motivation and challenge for the third game. He tore into it like a man possessed. He physically dominated Nicholas Murphy and wore him down in the end.

One incident before half-time almost scared me. There was a loose ball out on the sideline, Darragh burst to it, won it and turned. Pierce O'Neill was in front of him, screening him, basketball-style. O'Neill was on his toes, ready to block Darragh's way in the event of a dummy or a sidestep or a swerve. Instead, Darragh ploughed into him, keeled him over.

The referee gave a free against Darragh. A harmless free.

I was a couple of yards away and there was wildness in Darragh's eyes. I let a roar at him to calm down a bit. He was so fired up. I turned away and grinned to myself.

The backs conceded exactly five points in each half. Bang on the target. Donaghy was magnificent. With Graham Canty gone, they sent the midfielder Derek Kavanagh in to the full-back position. Donaghy ran riot. He only got a point himself, but between being fouled and laying the ball off he must have accounted for seven or eight more points. He's the story of the summer by now.

Morgan was bitching before and after the game about the way we played. No grace. It's over, Billy. Grow up and take your beating.

On Tuesday night in Killarney we're coming back, training for an All-Ireland final. I'm going to enjoy every second of the next month.