Paddy O'Rourke picks up the chorus and tosses it into the garbage. "You have to live in the real world," he counsels. People have been talking about history this week as if it's about to prove some kind of magical firewall for Down footballers. Imagine, they have never lost a senior championship game to Kerry. It's like identifying a breed of hare that's never fallen foul of a fox.

Except, Paddy doesn't buy it.

The story here, he reckons, isn't one of history so much as distance. Paddy fancies Down to blow the football championship wide open in Croke Park today, but not because the experience of old men like Kevin Mussen, Sean O'Neill, Paddy Doherty or the McCartans was a uniformly happy one against the Kingdom.

And certainly not because the side he himself led to the Sam Maguire in '91 managed to uphold the county's 100pc record against Kerry with a semi-final victory.

Paddy believes that Down can make it five championship wins out of five against Gaelic football's Rockefellers because, as he puts it, "I've no doubt that now is the time to get them. If Kerry are going to be caught, it'll be this weekend."

There has maybe been a tendency this week to take the mascara and eye pencil to this business of Kerry and Down.

UNIQUE

It's been tarted up into something it quite palpably isn't. Yet, through the prism of history, it holds unique status in Gaelic football.

So why pass the opportunity of a drum roll?

For the only other counties with unblemished championship figures against Kerry are the small handful that have never played them.

You could, too, draw parallel lines between the discomfort that great Down team of the 60s visited upon Kerry with the wretched itch Tyrone now seem to inflict upon Jack O'Connor's boys. Something deep within the Kerry DNA has Ulster football parcelled as some kind of unscrupulously modified product.

Mick O'Dwyer went to print with an unambiguous view that the Down team that won three All-Irelands in the 60s, beating Kerry in two finals, "could be quite cynical when it came to fouling, especially outside the scoring range".

O'Dwyer stresses in his autobiography, 'Blessed and Obsessed', that he is "not accusing Down of being ruthless hit-men who thumped their way to glory". He does argue, however, that "they brought a cynical edge to their play which was difficult to counteract".

Kerry's distaste for that edge was easily soothed by the natural feel-good factor of Down becoming the first team to bring Sam Maguire north of the border in 1960. Yet, they believed they had been "bullied" out of that game too, and, by the time red and black ribbons were dangling from Sam for a third time in '68, Kerry had become thoroughly sick of the sight of those colours.

Actually, there is a thread running through O'Dwyer's reflections on that period that seems to chart a similar course to O'Connor's observations on Tyrone in his book, 'Keys to the Kingdom'.

"There's an arrogance to northern football which rubs Kerry people up the wrong way," wrote O'Connor. "They're flash and nouveau riche and full of it. Add up the number of All-Ireland titles the Ulster counties have won and it's less than a third of Kerry's total.

"But northern teams advertise themselves well. They talk about how they did it, they go on and on about this theory and that practice as if they'd just split the atom."

No question, the perfect All-Ireland for Kerry this year would be to beat Tyrone in the September final. Conversely, the nightmare scenario would to be to lose again to Mickey Harte and his "full of it" team. Yet, today offers a kind of alternative Armageddon too.

Imagine getting side-swiped in July by an Ulster county not even touted as contenders?

O'Rourke, previously manager of his native county and now in charge of Armagh, is unequivocal in his belief that today's is a truly treacherous assignment for the All-Ireland champions.

It's not the maths of history, he argues, that Kerry have to fear. It's the gusting energy of a new and vibrant team.

"I don't think you let your mind go there," he says of Down's unique record against the Kingdom. "I don't think that you can afford to. You only look at what you're playing against. And it's always a case of whoever has the best panel of players will win these games.

coincidence

"I think it's just more of a coincidence that Kerry have never beaten Down in the championship. In '91, we had the best panel of players, but there was a lot of other years that, if we had met them in the championship, the score would have been reversed.

"Tradition is one thing. It obviously gives a team some sort of belief going into these games. But will the Down players be fixating on it now?

"Absolutely not. In fact, it's the thing you keep furthest away from because it doesn't have any bearing on it whatsoever. That's really only talk for the supporters and the press. You can only focus on what is relevant at the time and that's who you're playing against, who's picking up who, and who's going to be able to win the individual battles."

O'Rourke sees Kerry today as a significantly compromised force.

"I actually have a feeling that Kerry won't be in this year's All-Ireland final," he says. "I think they've lost a lot of players and this weekend could be very difficult for them because they've got another two major, major players missing for other reasons.

"No matter what team it is, very few can handle that amount of setbacks. While Kerry have a lot of talented players, they are greatly weakened from the team that played in last year's All-Ireland final."

Certainly, that absence through suspension of Tomas O Se and Paul Galvin gives this fixture a sheen of opportunity for Down. With the likes of Diarmuid Murphy, Darragh O Se, Tadhg Kennelly and Tommy Walsh already pared from last year's All-Ireland-winning team, O'Connor is compelled to shuffle the deck like a man running low on funds.

Yet John Evans, the Kerry football evangelist currently in charge of Tipperary, suspects that people are underestimating the calibre of champion going to war here. He certainly dismisses any suggestions of complacency.

"There's no danger of that, none whatsoever," argues Evans. "I say that for one reason and one reason only. This team is too experienced to do presumption. It is too experienced to do complacency. They're a self-motivating bunch of lads. I just don't see it happening. I don't see it as an issue.

"My view is that Kerry will be in the semi-finals, but I expect Down to give them a right good game. I say that on the basis of the pace and enthusiasm of this young Down team. And they know that Kerry will play football with them.

"But, with all due respects to Down, I think they're still in the development stage. We (Tipperary) have met them a couple of times and James McCartan is doing a wonderful, wonderful job.

"But they're in transition. They're young and they're physically not as strong as Kerry.

"In saying that, I do think they're going to give Kerry a very good game, particularly in the first 40 minutes. And, if things go right for them, who knows? Because the last thing that Kerry need is a fast-moving, vibrant team. And Down are that."

Evans' Tipperary were well beaten by Kerry in the Munster championship when, despite Tipp getting an early run on them, the Kingdom eased through without the merest flicker of panic.

He is also in agreement with O'Rourke that to focus on history here is, essentially, to buy into false profit.

"It is a unique record," he agrees of Down's unbeaten championship status against the Kingdom. "But, look, I don't see too much of an angle from that side. What I see is that Kerry are resilient and I don't think the Down backs are experienced enough for the Kerry forwards.

"Now, at the same time, I think the Down forwards will give the Kerry backs plenty to do. But from the point of view of physicality and experience, they're still in development."

Coming from Division 2 and having been evicted at an early stage from the Ulster championship, it is easy to see why Down's ability to cope with the whitest heat might now be questioned. Under both O'Rourke and his successor, Ross Carr, they struggled to marry pragmatic, hard-nosed defence to often swashbuckling attack.

Yet, O'Rourke believes that James McCartan may be close to striking that balance now.

"They've an awful lot of talent, a lot of very good footballers, players that would get on any side," he says of this Down team. There's a huge amount of energy about them and they have very good forwards. They've been putting up big, big scores from their first game in the National League.

"And they've continued to do that as they showed again last Saturday (against Sligo). The question always is, 'can they keep the door closed at the other end?' I think they have shown over the last six months that they've got a lot better at doing that. They're reasonably solid at the back now.

"There's been big changes, the whole half-back line is different. I think the changes have helped them and they aren't that far away now. They're going to be very hard to beat.

"I certainly don't see this game as anywhere near as predictable as some people seem to think."

And Down as serious contenders for Sam if they evict the Kingdom?

"Absolutely," says O'Rourke. "Beat Kerry and anything can happen. Anything!"

- Vincent Hogan

Irish Independent