Anchor's Angle with Michael Lyster

Watch Kerry v Tyrone in the GAA All-Ireland SFC final and the minor final between Mayo and Tyrone on The Sunday Game Live this Sunday from 12.30pm on RTÉ Two and RTÉ.ie (Ireland only). Listen live on RTÉ Radio 1. Live updates on RTÉ.ie and RTÉ Aertel.

On Saturday, 14 June last I was a guest at a function organised by the Shercock GAA Club in Cavan.

As the saying goes, a great night was had by all and a number of well-known faces from the world of Gaelic Games made the effort to be there on the night to help the club in their fund-raising drive.

This was the night of the Ulster Football Championship replay between Tyrone and Down and we were all getting updates on how the drama was unfolding in Newry, first as the game went into extra-time and then as the excitement was clearly reaching fever pitch at The Marches as Down clung on for a famous victory.

Ulster Television's GAA presenter Adrian Logan was one of those invited to attend the Shercock event and did eventually make it, albeit somewhat late. Adrian had been at the match in Newry but left before the end to get to the Shercock event. He was in his car when Benny Coulter struck the vital goal which turned the tide of the match and he was on his way from the car into the function room when the final whistle blew on Tyrone's Ulster Championship hopes.

We couldn't wait to tell him about the dramatic conclusion to the game, or to be more precise, Benny Tierney, former Armagh goalkeeper and part MC/part comedian on the night, couldn't wait to tell him - which he did, from the stage and at length!

Poor old Logie was in shock but we consoled him by pointing out that, if Tyrone couldn't make it past Down at the start of the Ulster Championship, they probably weren't going anywhere anyway. Indeed, newspaper coverage of the game told of manager Mickey Harte cutting an isolated figure leaving the ground, of past glories counting for nothing and of a shift in the Northern football landscape.

That Saturday night we ate our food, we drank our beer and we talked football; in the course of it all we discounted Tyrone from the Sam Maguire short list.

Oddly enough, another far more talked-about event in the Football Championship happened that weekend. The following day Clare travelled to Killarney to take on the All-Ireland champions Kerry. The game itself was a non-event, Kerry strolling to the expected comfortable victory. But, of course, we recall this match for an entirely different reason.

'Galvin Loses Plot' blared out the headlines the next day as the entire country, it seems, was caught up by the Kerry captain's temper meltdown. Bewildered folk in the Kingdom went running from their homes beating their chests and crying to the Gods in a 'say-it-ain't so' mantra of despair.

Three weeks later, with 'The Galvin Incident' still filling the airwaves, the Kerry meltdown continued in the Munster final. They threw away an eight-point half-time lead, Marc and Darragh Ó Sé were both red-carded and people were ducking wagon wheels all around Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

That evening, as we slipped away from Cork, we'd be hard pressed to win an argument suggesting that Kerry would be All-Ireland champions this year.

Tyrone and Kerry. Two counties on their uppers. Two counties who, amazingly, will this Sunday contest the All-Ireland final. So, then, how has this come about? After all that has happened, how come Tyrone are bidding for an incredible third All-Ireland title of the decade - and also a third EVER - and how come Kerry are just a game away from notching up a landmark three-in-a-row?

There are, perhaps, three reasons. Firstly, both are very good football teams. Kerry's class we know about and don't need to give any great expansion to here; if you're a visitor to this country just look at the record books and you'll get the picture.

But Tyrone, too, are an excellent side and one that doesn't always get full credit for the level of ability in the team.

Sure, we can bang on about their style of play, their blanket defence and their uncompromising approach and we mightn't be entirely wrong. But that, actually, doesn't win you matches all by itself. At the end of the day, you also have to be able to raise green and white flags - scoreless draws don't count in Gaelic football.

In their last four Championship games they have clocked up 3-54, which is a respectable tally by any measure (the comparison to Kerry's 6-61 tells you that Kerry are, essentially, better goal-getters, but we knew that!).

A quick glance around the team points you towards such heroic leaders as Brian Dooher and Ryan McMenamin, fantastic athletes like Sean Cavanagh and such a wealth of experience in men like Ciaran Gourley, Philip Jordan, Conor Gormley and Enda McGinley. Some of them may not say very much but they can play plenty.

The second thing you need to reach an All-Ireland final is a bit of luck. Tyrone got theirs when the draw for the first round of qualifiers was made. They needed to be gently eased back into the Championship rapids and when they were paired against Louth they knew that they would probably have enough football ability to paddle their way through this first section.

Kerry, as losing provincial finalists, were given the luxury of time in which to come to terms with the trauma of the previous few weeks. Their 3 August meeting with Monaghan was hardly a 'gimme', but their 2007 showdown had warned the Kingdom against any complacency.

It still turned out to be nip-an-tuck most of the way through as Kerry fiddled with the gears. Twenty minutes from the end, with the scores level, Monaghan had a great chance for a goal but the effort failed. A few minutes later, Kieran Donaghy netted for Kerry and Monaghan's fate was sealed. For the second year running they couldn't buy a lucky break at Croke Park in the big game.

There has been a third element which has been crucial to the rehabilitation of both counties during this summer's roller-coaster events, and that is the roles played by their respective managers. Pat O'Shea and Mickey Harte are pragmatic, no nonsense individuals. Both exude a calm at times when calm, more than anything else, is required.

As football fans, media, former players and high profile commentators were in a tail-spin in the Kingdom after the Paul Galvin suspension, Pat O'Shea was telling us that Kerry would just have to get on with it. When Cork plundered the Munster title amidst a deluge, with the Ó Sé boys already in the shower, Pat told us that Kerry would have to get on with it.

I doubt if subsequent team meeting and training sessions were just laid-back, run-of-the-mill affairs, but it doesn't matter. What the public saw was a team taking its medicine, dusting itself down and sticking their shoulders back for the next challenge.

I'm sure that Mickey Harte, like the rest of us, occasionally loses his temper - but I doubt if it's very often and more seldom still about football. Mickey is a study in even-handedness. He doesn't get bogged down in what people write in newspaper columns or say on The Sunday Game panel or even pontificate about on bar stools. At the end of the day he knows that what his team do on the field is all that matters. The rest is circus.

Have no doubt about it, that general attitude works right through the panel. When you meet the Tyrone players they don't look at you like you're from the Revenue Commissioners and you won't get caustic comments about Joe Brolly or Colm O' Rourke - even those who've been subject to the dynamic duo's scrutiny seem to take it in their stride.

So, we wish both men and their teams all the best on Sunday. We hope it turns out to be a great game of football - and may the best team win.