When the bat signal went up for Jack O’Connor to resume managing his county in the autumn of 2021, it was pointed out at the initial media conference that each of his three appointments had happened at a time when Tyrone were All-Ireland champions, having defeated Kerry along the way.His answer acknowledged the coincidence but went on to name-check six other counties and the challenge they would pose – a measured response from someone who had once said: “Losing to Tyrone is worse than losing to almost anybody else.”The fact remained that Kerry, facing an eight-year All-Ireland hiatus – the third-longest since the county had begun to stockpile championships – turned to the manager who had established a record of winning in two previous appointments.This weekend is O’Connor’s fifth championship meeting with Tyrone. He has only lost one of them, but the Ulster county has a centrality in Kerry’s football universe after the events of the 2000s.Under Mickey Harte, Tyrone arrived in 2003 and in that year’s All-Ireland semi-final, their energetic swarm tackles brought a relentless disruption to Kerry. Such was O’Connor’s control on his 2021 appointment that it had been possible to appoint as coach Paddy Tally, one of Harte’s original lieutenants, despite deep traditionalist misgivings.In his much-quoted memoir Keys to the Kingdom, published nearly 20 years ago, O’Connor cast light on the influence of Tyrone.“People in Kerry have one abiding image of the 2003 semi-final. Eoin Brosnan, our big strong forward, on the ground with the ball in his arms and eight Tyrone players converging on him like a posse.”Appointed as successor to Páidí Ó Sé, O’Connor won the next All-Ireland and a year later, faced Tyrone in the final. Defeat came as a bracing corrective. At the end of 2004, county chair Seán Walsh had proclaimed himself “delighted that it took a Kerry team to restore the pride in Gaelic football”.Tyrone’s joint manager Feargal Logan shakes hands with Jack O'Connor of Kerry after 2023 All-Ireland quarter-final. Photograph: James Crombie/©INPHO Now, the Barbarians were back inside the gate. The manager, though, was clear-eyed.“We lost the All-Ireland final to Tyrone by the margin of a goal. We won nine of the 24 balls that we kicked to our full-forward line in the final and we turned over possession again and again. We were outfought and out-thought by a tougher team.”He identified an incident in which Tyrone’s Brian Dooher dispossessed Darragh Ó Sé and determined that would not happen again.“We’ll break tackles and we’ll tackle hard. We’ll tackle in the way that little Brian Dooher tackles Darragh Ó Sé every time I look at the screen. First, though, I have to go away and I have to actually learn how to coach the tackle.”It is well known now how he had consulted the Ulster GAA website for tackle drills and spoke to “a prominent football man” in the province, believed to be Tally.There was another factor, he believed, in Tyrone’s success.Tyrone's Pádraig Hampsey with David Clifford of Kerry in the 2023 All-Ireland quarter-final. Photograph: Ben Brady/©INPHO “We know too that we lost not just to a great team but to men who hit a peak after a long, long summer when they did the hard yards and played 10 games, finishing in September so battle-hardened that they were ready for anything. On the other hand, we had cruised through the season, never leaving the comfort zone.”Harte would win a further All-Ireland in 2008 when Pat O’Shea was Kerry manager. By the time O’Connor exacted revenge, four years later in a Killarney qualifier, it was more a case of “where old ghosts meet” but the Kerry manager echoed his previous sentiments.“We felt that we were not as bad as people had made us out to be. We were six points down against a fired-up Westmeath team last week 10 minutes into the second half and yet we fought back to win and we felt we did not get the credit for that. It was a prefect dress rehearsal for today’s game.”[ Darragh Ó Sé: Dublin are on a high, but Galway have been building quietly and fear nobodyOpens in new window ]Three years ago, O’Connor reflected on maybe the ultimate style revenge. For everyone who had said 20 years previously of swarm tackling that it left players free elsewhere, David Clifford produced a no-look pass kicked over his shoulder into Tony Brosnan despite being surrounded on the sideline by Pádraig Hampsey and Ronan McNamee.O’Connor said: “I didn’t think it was a great pass to him in the first place. I was just following the play and said to myself, ‘Jesus, they are lining him up here now to nail him’.”This Saturday, Kerry are on the trail of a third win over Tyrone in four championships. That’s what has been nailed.