Dara Ó Cinnéide's Solo Run

Dara looks ahead to the latest Kerry v Cork instalment and anticipates a quality game of football for purists to enjoy.

Even though the sides have met on numerous occasions this decade in the championship and the fact that there is the safety net of All-Ireland qualifier participation for the loser - Sunday's game in Killarney is attracting an unusually high level of interest for this time of year.

Due to a number of factors, Kerry supporters are notoriously slow to engage with the football championship. However, the fact that Munster champions, Cork are appearing on the radar that bit earlier this summer, coupled to the common opinion that the Leesiders are seen as genuine All Ireland contenders this year, will ensure that the attendance on Sunday should buck recent trends for matches between the two sides.

Most pertinently of all perhaps from the Kingdom viewpoin is that they will surely realise that it was during the Munster championship last year that the cracks that were to undermine their three-in-a-row attempt first appeared. Consequently, they will be striving to ensure that a repeat of last year's indiscipline doesn't cost them in the long term.

Discipline has been a cornerstone of Jack O'Connor's latest project and with Maurice Deegan in charge of the whistle I doubt there will be much of the unseemly behaviour that characterised the three championship tussles between the teams last year.

Pat McEnaney's performance in refereeing the Tyrone v Armagh encounter showed very clearly the importance of the man in the middle for these tension filled affairs between rival teams and, of course players too have a huge responsibility to ensure that the game is played in the right spirit.

Players on both sides last year abdicated that responsibility in the name of 'passionate and intense cross border rivalry' and it simply wasn't good enough. One of the most passionate and intense Kerry footballers of recent times, Seamus Moynihan came from the border badlands of Glenflesk-Barraduff. No man had more motivation to beat Cork, but he always went about it in a disciplined fashion. A repeat of last year's antics is unlikely.

The peculiar nature of Cork-Kerry rivalry in recent matches in Munster has served only to highlight that the provincial battles are but an odd and incongruous sideshow to the main event beyond August, but this Sunday's game is one neither side will want to lose.

When Kerry were fortunate to scrape through their 2007 joust in Killarney, the disappointment on the Cork side was tempered by a sense that the sides would be meeting again and while this duly transpired in that year's All Ireland final, a defeat at this stage will return the losers to a vastly more competitive shark-pool of qualifier teams.

Cork's last six championship defeats have been to Kerry and you'd have to venture as far back as 2004 to find another team apart from Kerry (Fermanagh) to have beaten them in championship football. There is a feeling abroad that Cork might have fared better than Kerry did in their battles with Tyrone, but the Rebels never got to test that theory.

Conor Counihan knows more about his players facing into the championship this year than he did this time last year and Cork make no secret of the fact that they enjoy the day out in Killarney.

On the positive side for Kerry, Kieran Donaghy's loss through injury, although significant, can be absorbed if Tommy Walsh and Colm Cooper click in the inside line. Declan O Sullivan has had an injury free run into the Cork match this time out and he too should be in a position to leave an impression on the game.

The half back line of Ó'Sé, O'Mahony and Griffin have been on top of their game all year and Marc Ó'Sé, now happily injury free, can be expected to pick up Cork's most potent inside forward, Donncha O Connor.

Much has been made of Darragh Ó'Sé's expected omission from Kerry's starting line-up, but if Jack O Connor goes with the anticipated Quirke-Kennelly partnership he knows exactly what to expect and having a big game player such as Ó'Sé ready, willing and able to come on at any stage strengthens his hand considerably.

On a final note, first time 2009 visitors to Fitzgerald Stadium are in for a treat on Sunday as the picturesque Killarney venue has just had a further facelift with the construction over the winter and spring months of a new terrace at the Lewis Road end of the ground.

If the recent spell of fine weather continues, there are very few better places for football people from either county to watch the latest instalment of one of the great rivalries in GAA!