Tom Humphries profiles Kerry's Tom O'Sullivan who this week is aiming to win a third senior All-Ireland medal.

The men from the Kingdom might be accustomed to the hard road but seldom have they found the highway so long. Eight games of senior championship football. In times past that would have been enough for two All-Irelands.

In these changed times it has been just enough to provide a learning curve for men who seemed to know everything.

Somewhere along the way just about every component of this Kerry team has been held up to the light by means of forceps and been prodded and poked by a dissatisfied home constituency. If Kerry had been operating a squad rotation system the door would have been swinging fast enough to supply electrical power to most of the western seaboard.

Most of the head-shaking and hand-wringing has been in connection with the forward lines which in the dark time before Kieran Donaghy came among them couldn't find the posts. There have been novenas offered along the way though for the midfield and for virtually every member of the Kerry defence. It's been a quare sort of a summer.

Tom O'Sullivan is in an odd situation in that most questions have been asked of him when the others have left the examination hall. The game against Longford saw Kerry graduate towards respectability, the win over Armagh was filed under legendary Kerry wins. In both games O'Sullivan struggled with gold-plate corner forwards. Which was a surprise because he has been one of the safer pairs of hands since he came into the team in 2000.

Having missed out on a Kerry jersey as a minor he won an under-21 All-Ireland in 1998. He was young enough to still be involved with the under-21s a year later when they lost in the final and in September 2000 he was obliged to accept a senior medal. Since then, apart from a broken jaw suffered against Meath in 2001 and a stuttery season the following summer, he has risen to indispensability. Last time Mayo lost to Kerry in an All-Ireland final O'Sullivan took an All Star out of the season too.

Those around him on the team used to wonder which of the two Rathmore lads, O'Sullivan or Aidan O'Mahony (another Cork-based Garda), were the bigger influence on each other when they were off over the county border.

O'Sullivan has matured and settled though. Now the question no longer arises even in jest. Mid-career O'Sullivan finds himself closing in on a third senior medal, a fitting reward for the miles travelled and the shifts swapped over six years combining football with his Garda work in Cork.

He joked in a programme questionnaire last summer as he listed among his ambitions a desire "to find a nice girlfriend". But along with the other stated ambitions (another All-Ireland medal and an East Kerry championship, please) it is suggestive of a more settled streak from which Kerry have benefited. Back in 2002, a summer which began with uncertainty over which role he had on the team and which ended in Croke Park with some freestyle shenanigans with Cork's Fionán Murray, the lack of tenure seemed to diminish O'Sullivan.

Jack O'Connor's less fraught managerial style suited O'Sullivan's laid-back ways and early in O'Connor's reign it was agreed O'Sullivan would be allowed settle in the corner-back position. Kerry went to work not just on his physique but on his speed, agility and the mysterious art of tackling. O'Sullivan prospered.

The signs against Cork in Croke Park last month were O'Sullivan is back on the sunny side of the street. He has benefited from the uncertainty and introspection offered by an eight-game summer.

This weekend O'Sullivan faces a Mayo forward line which left the reputations of several Dublin defenders in tatters after the semi-final. Colin Cooper, Kieran Donaghy and Darragh Ó Sé may hog the attention this weekend but what goes on in the quiet of the corner will have just as great an influence. O'Sullivan is a man for taking his chances. This one won't get away easily.