Cork will feel they have the hunger and the need to win this game, but Kerry's appetite is underestimated, says Darragh Ó Sé

THIS GAME. It’s like weather in my head, changing all the time. For a while I couldn’t see Kerry being beaten. Now it depends on the health of a few players. The likes of Graham Canty, for Cork, with Anthony Lynch out already. We don’t know about Paul Galvin. Time to think slowly again.

I think they will give Paul as much time as possible. I would have no worries there. So much of the game at that level and between Cork and Kerry sides is mental and in the head that a player like Paul with his experience could come in at the last minute. When you are younger if you get a knock in the run-in you doubt yourself and whether you can do it. You doubt that you have the work done. Paul has had the trials and tribulations and I would have no fears for him mentally. He will give a performance once his body is right.

What will make the difference on Sunday is the mental side of things because beyond that there isn’t a cigarette paper’s worth of a gap between these sides. There is such familiarity. They have played each other so often there are no surprises left. Cork know Killarney well. No fears there. It gets to be like a chess game. Anticipating the next two or three moves the other side will make. You spend the couple of weeks before a Cork game trying to think outside the box, trying to think of new tricks and approaches which will give you the edge, something new.

Both teams’ preparation would be very similar. Nobody will have an advantage in fitness. There are a lot of players on both sides in great shape. Cork galloped through the league but Kerry are in very good order for the first weekend in June.

In the last six years or so Kerry would have had a slow-burning thing going into the championship but this year the fact they weren’t going flat out late in the league and the fact that they got away for a bit of collective training has done them a lot of good.

The collective training I am told went really well. Got through a lot and the players were asked if they wanted a night out and they declined. They wanted to keep drink free. (I’d like to think that wouldn’t have happened if I was there! How quickly all the years I put into developing systems and principles have been wiped away as if I was never there!) I suppose that’s a positive though.

Cork will feel that they have the hunger and the need to win this but I think Kerry’s appetite is underestimated.

I know these players and they are sick already as being written off as a team who are taking some time out for transition, written off because they lost a few players and are now expected not to recover.

These lads know there is more to be won. They know the excellence still left in the panel and the team and they want to maximise what they can out of their careers, as many big games, as many medals, as many All-Irelands. That’s a huge things for these players. Getting every ounce out of their careers.

On Sunday the Kerry lads will gather in the Dr Crokes club across the road. They’ll do their warm-up there. It’s a haven. No matter what way you come into Killarney on match day you can’t help seeing the craic going on around the place but when you come in there under the railway bridge you leave it behind. There is a solitude in there.

The Dr Crokes women will look after the players brilliantly, as always. Some fellas will be laughing and joking a little bit too hard and a bit too loud. You’ll know they are bricking it. Some lads will go off on their own. But you are in your own company in the arms of the panel. There is a nervous energy there but you have your own routine. You have been through a checklist in your head so many times during the week. Now you run through it again if you have done things right your head settles. It is hard time to kill though.

I remember in 2002 playing in Killarney. Mike Frank was playing. The World Cup soccer was on that morning as we waited. Ireland were playing Spain in the game that ended in a penalty shoot-out. Everybody was going in and watching the soccer. I didn’t want to watch I was getting my own head right. I noticed Mike Frank sitting off in a room on his own. It was a wet horrible day. We drew with Cork eight points apiece but Mike Frank scored eight of the points and three or four of them were absolute screamers he kicked off Anthony Lynch. If you are talking about focus that is it. It’s not a day for side shows. It’s 70 minutes of heavy belting.

Down the years managers have tried every trick in the book when it comes to winding up players for Kerry and Cork. The uncle used to be fierce for it. He always said Cork brought out the best in him. Or the worst. He wasn’t too sure. He’d be revved up though.

Then down the years there would be talks and videos and speakers and psychologists or the simpler stuff which worked just as well. Being Kerry and Cork the common denominator down the years would have been college, UCC in particular. Word was always coming back with the students that so and so on the Cork team didn’t rate so and so on the Kerry team and was telling people he’d make a show of him on Sunday. Lads would be jumping out of their skins.

For Killarney the Cork crowd like to come in numbers. And when they think they have a good chance they come in even bigger numbers. You can motivate yourself just by looking at the amount of red around the place.

When the time comes the lads will walk en bloc under the bridge up the little lane and across the road into the crowd going into the stadium. That is a time for mental toughness. There are Cork people and Kerry people. You can look at the guys. Some have iPods. Some don’t. You look up and there are people trying to talk to players and to salute them and the lads keeping the eyes front. It’s impressive.

Before you know it then the whistle blows and it is mayhem for maybe 10 minutes. You aren’t looking at who is on who. You are surviving. The belts in those first 10 minutes are worse than anything afterwards. The ball is moving very fast. Players crashing in as hard as they can. Everybody wanting to get on the ball. Anything moving is fair game! Then there is a cut-off point where it all calms down and the big belts are just wreckless!

The back door has taken away a lot of the X factor in these types of game but Sunday is still special, more of an edge than most games. Winning or losing now you still take it that there are two different championships but whoever wins on Sunday take a lot of advantages away.

It won’t be a good gauge on the All-Ireland till we see them in Croke Park. That’s a whole new championship. This year though it is crucial for both teams to win on Sunday. It is June. A month and a half till the serious stuff. This is the last big opportunity, the last big game before that second championship starts. Both teams really need a good result going forward. Then there is the recent history and context between them. All huge. And how will they handle each other. Who will take Donaghy. How will the midfield battle break. How will Kerry handle the size of that diamond in the middle that Cork has established.

Two heavyweights in for a real game. A lot at stake but some of the bigger players in the green and gold are going especially well.

So head on the block? Kerry by four points!