Don’t trust a single thing a Kerry fan tells you this week

You say it best when you say nothing at all.

You know Ronan Keating wasn't all bad, and that pearl of wisdom from the Boyzone king will echo with plenty of Kerrymen this coming week in the build up to the All-Ireland final. The county are going for All-Ireland number 38, (39 if you include their sole hurling title - it's ok, not many Kerrymen do) and for a county used to success they know exactly how to build up to an All-Ireland. It is not quite on the Kilkenny scale of heading up to Croke Park supremely confident of success, and in some respects it's almost the opposite. Kerry people have a fear of failure, but also a deep lying confidence (not arrogance) of their own skill, of their team's worth and their place in history. There is always going to be a rare Kerryman who talks up his own county, but he will be regarded with great suspicion by his fellow supporters. It is a unique brand of green and gold omerta that carries huge weight in the build up to an All-Ireland final. He may not find a horse's head in his bed for opening his mouth, but neither will he find an All-Ireland ticket While the beat of life in Dublin city quickens this week and the bunting is unfurled in the houses in Drumcondra and in GAA clubs north and south of the Liffey, Kerry folks' innate sense of not blowing anything up too much takes over. Every Kerry person is now on high alert for any 'outsider' who may be looking for information or fancy themselves as a lumberjack chasing up trees outside Fitzgerald Stadium this week. Not that there are any trees left in Killarney after last year's episode with a Donegal man up a palm tree looking for secrets. Kerry people love talking GAA. It is more than a religion down in the south-west, it is the religion. It is woven into the very fabric of life. It is talked about at mass, discussed on the street, it is simply Kerry. Kerry is football, and football is the green and gold for everyone from Rathmore to Tarbert. The traditions of All-Ireland finals past have a huge bearing on how the current side, and the fans, prepare for another trip to Croke Park. And a key part of that is not betraying your true feelings before the game. It is almost a survival strategy where you retain that mental energy until you cross the Croke Park threshold on Sunday and hear the Rose of Tralee blasted out by the Artane Band. Star Wars might be a big deal to everyone on the entire planet, but down in the Iveragh penisula the only thing worth talking about this week is a war of a different kind in a galaxy fairly close to home. When you speak to a Kerryman this week they will invariably answer your question with a question,

"How will they get on Sunday?" "Jez I don't know, what do you think yourself?"

Outsiders would consider this a form of cute-hoorism that the county has become somewhat infamous for, unfairly so. But no Kerryman goes out of his or her way to try to fool you, no matter how much you paid for that Aran sweater in Killarney. Instead they are merely reacting a finely honed evolutionary mechanism that has been passed down from generation to generation. If you ask them if they are going to the game they will say 'ara I might wait until the weekend and see' while their wife at home has been busy making sandwiches and deep freezing them for the long trip from Waterville to Croker. You can't trust what they are saying because they hardly trust it themselves. GAA fans know that beating the Kingdom in an All-Ireland final makes the victory all the sweeter. Just ask Tyrone and Armagh. Mayo have endured a famine of over sixty years without the All-Ireland title. But a winter in Castleisland or Killarney without 'The Canister' is worse than any famine. A year without winning the All-Ireland is seen as a failure. And a year when you lose a final is even worse. And to protect against any overconfidence seeping from fans to the players, it is vital that everything about the final is kept as on the 'down-low' as possible. There may be an All-Ireland song but Radio Kerry aren't blasting it out 24/7, and  you can be sure there are no 'two-in-a-row' t-shirts being printed this week. There is no such thing as fate in sport, but there's no point tempting it if there is a benevolent God up there after all and he turns out to be a Dublin supporter. The less said the better, especially out in the open. Wait until the full-time whistle, and then talk to your heart's content, win or lose. Eight-time All-Ireland winner Ger Power speaking on radio last week said that Kerry had a 'small chance' against Dublin. And the presenter scoffed at more typical Kerry plamás. But Power was not being cute. He was being honest in his own way, and how exactly Kerry people would expect him to react. Kerry do have a small chance, and so do Dublin. No-one knows how the game will go until the ball is thrown in. Kerry fans are never overconfident but deep within them they hold onto the belief and the security that the county will win an awful lot more all-Irelands than they will lose. Dublin have that city swagger, Kerry have the country wariness. And losing is a fear, especially to Dublin. Losing to them is almost as bad as losing to Cork. Almost! So when you come across your local friendly Kerryman or woman remember to bring plenty of salt with you for every syllable that emerges from their mouth this week. They are not trying to be deliberately deceptive, they are merely carrying on tradition. And isn't tradition what the GAA is all about after-all.