All-Ireland Club football and hurling championships Semi-finals: Ian O'Riordantalks to the St Vincent's manager Mickey Whelan, whose players will be aiming to create their own history against reigning All-Ireland champions Crossmaglen tomorrow

Five of us squeeze into a sofa opposite Mickey Whelan in the lounge bar of the St Vincent's clubhouse. He takes one look at us and curses our youth.

"Youse lot are getting younger all the time." True, some of us look young enough to be his grandkids, but I tell him I'm not so young. "You're young too, sonovabitch!"

Whelan is 69 years old next birthday and he acts his age. He cuts straight to the chase.

We're here to talk about how St Vincent's will try to beat Crossmaglen in tomorrow's All-Ireland club football semi-final.

That's Crossmaglen as in 12-in-a-row Armagh champions, six-time Ulster champions, and four-time and reigning All-Ireland champions. So how have the preparations gone, Mickey?

"How does any team prepare for Crossmaglen? Are you preparing for defeat? That's their history. Most teams lose to them. We just looked at their game. But we didn't over-analyse it. I mean you could tell me the Crossmaglen game plan, couldn't you?" (Eh . . . yeah) "So we asked the players that, and they came up with exactly what I had written down myself. We know how they play. Whether we're physically capable of that is another thing . . ."

So does he fear that, not being physical enough? "I have no fear. Because for us, it's a win-win situation. It's another experience for a young team. I think that the guys will do themselves justice."

Ah, but don't St Vincent's have a bit of tradition of their own? All-Ireland champions in 1976, four-time Leinster champions, and 25 Dublin titles.

"Tradition is nothing unless you're delivering on it. We've had a tradition all right for the last 25 years - a tradition of losing. Even though we were still seen as a top club in Dublin, we were delivering nothing. This tradition behind us doesn't really exist, because this team doesn't know what it is. They only read about it. It was only a hindrance for them, because they were trying to compare themselves to the photographs around the wall here."

We glance at those photos and they are mostly black-and-white. St Vincent's hadn't won a Dublin title since 1984 before they put that record straight against St Brigid's last October. Without any great expectation, they went on to win the Leinster title, beating Tyrrellspass of Westmeath in December - and suddenly they're in the mix for an All-Ireland. "The first thing I did after winning Leinster was give them seven weeks off. They'd been together for 11 months. You can make the mistake of overcooking the whole thing, and if you're a little unsure of yourself, you tend to do that. When you get to my age, not being sure of yourself doesn't enter it.

"If we kept on training through that then inevitably they'd have gone down. We've been back four-and-a-half weeks now. They seem to be motoring. I believe they're further on than the Leinster final. That win was more experience, so they should be better. They know they have that under their belt, so they have to improve from that experience. They've good belief in themselves as well. And it's really all about believing, isn't it? If you believe you can climb a mountain, you'll get to the top."

There's a feeling out there that whoever wins tomorrow's showdown in Navan will be primed to win the title outright.

"Everyone is watching this game thinking this is the final. It is in my ass. This is just a game. And when you get into a final, all they have to do is die on the field, and they could win. No matter who wins on Sunday, they could still win or lose the final."

Whelan knows what St Vincent's need do to win, and he has no problem sharing. There is, after all, no secret to success.

"I feel to win games you want your best players on the ball, as often as they can. That's my belief. Maybe I'm crazy, but that's what I'm going with. So if our full back is good enough to get forward, create a hole for somebody, then he does that. As long as there's cover for him. We may well get exposed by a very, very experienced, very clever team like Crossmaglen, but that shouldn't set us back. We should have enough belief.

"We have leaders too. Ger Brennan, Tomás Quinn. Unless you give people leadership, they can't take it. You must have leaders on the field. They don't have to be captains, and I try to breathe that into people. Do I think the other team aren't at home coming up with our game plan? So, on the field, people have to see what's happening and make decisions. If you don't encourage them, and want to pigeonhole them, they won't be free to think."

This is his team, and they are free thinkers. Most of them were brought up that way since he took charge of them as under-21s three years ago, and 14 from that squad are on his panel. There's a real spirit in this team, he feels it. "I would hope so, that I've had some input into that. That's why I took the under-21s, to get the best players in the club thinking along the same lines. And develop it from there . . . now they believe in themselves.

"But even the country lads that have come in have been great. Like Brian Maloney and Pat Kelly (from Mayo) and Michael O'Shea (from Kerry). Their commitment has been great. But that doesn't surprise me. Footballers are footballers, once you put on a jersey, no matter what the jersey, you have a pride in yourself. A pride to deliver what you can deliver. I'm only surprised when I see guys doing the opposite. I wonder what the hell are they doing here? They're wasting good time. They could be at home with girlfriends instead of coming down here to train and not putting the work in. But look, I've said enough now. I'm making your job too easy."

So he gets up grinning and leaves us all a little inspired.