A couple of nights after the replay against Mayo, I had the most vivid dream that I was rejoining the Kerry panel.

And the only thing in my head was worry about how the boys would be when they'd see me coming through the gate. Would there be grumbling under breaths . . . 'Look at this bollix sauntering back in . . .'?

Funny enough, it never even entered my head that I mightn't be able for the training. That's the lie a dream will spin I suppose. So I was just tossing the gearbag into the boot of the car, wired up for action in Killarney, when something woke me.

Twice in about a week and a half I had the same dream, which I suppose tells you that I'm missing it. And I am. Not the hype and certainly not the endless questions, where every conversation becomes a replica of the last one. Where you're just firing out the same answer, the party line. "It'll be tough, but hopefully . . ."

What I miss is just being in that cocoon. I miss watching dusk slip down on Fitzgerald Stadium, a hard session finally over. I miss the comradeship.

When you're preparing for an All-Ireland final, you're in your own world, a world that most people outside don't really understand.

I've been thinking about the lads this week and the little sideshows that will pull at them. Tickets are always an issue. Any player will get about 35 each so, when you think about it, we had maybe 110 tickets coming into the house when Darragh, Marc and myself were playing.

Carriages

You'd think that might be plenty, but I was always looking for more come Saturday morning. I remember going up on the train to one final and asking Patrick Sullivan, the county chairman, to meet me between the carriages. I didn't want management to see me in case they'd think I wasn't tuned in.

Mike McCarthy (right) was a different kettle of fish. His mother always took his tickets and anyone who wanted one off Mike was told to ring her. Sensible.

Funny how things have changed. In the old days, come All-Ireland final week, you could have anything up to 1,700 people watching you train in Killarney. When you think about that, it was mad. Anybody could be in watching. I mean we played Cork in an All-Ireland final and all our training was open. There were no secrets, which would be unthinkable now that it's gone so tactical.

Personally, I liked three days of total selfishness before the final, so I'd never work Thursday or Friday. Might just hide myself away and watch box-sets of 'The Sopranos' or 'Frasier'. Hour after hour of it, completely on my own. Then, come Saturday, I'd get on a train in Kent Station, the Kerry gear on, but always a cap pulled down over my eyes. Hiding.

I'd go to Mallow, where the Kerry train would stop, specifically to pick me up. And that's when the clowning started . . .

Two carriages, management always in the top one, mayhem in the second. We'd become schoolkids on the journey. It started usually when the trolley arrived, little milk sachets and teabags suddenly flying. Last thing you wanted to be wearing was something white, because, rest assured, you'd be arriving in Heuston with tea-stains down your back. No prisoners taken.

Then the cards would come out and we'd play this high-risk game, 'Between The Sheets'. Basically flip two cards up and bet whatever you like on the next card being something in between. If it is, you take the pot.

Flipped

But if the third card matches one you've already flipped, you pay what's on the table.

There'd be lads like Darragh, Marc, Galvin, Fitzmaurice, Aodán MacGearailt and me. Someone could lose their shirt and that's when panic blew. More often than not, the loser made a lunge at the table, looking to retrieve his money and, realising there was no point in arguing, everyone else piled in. Carnage.

I remember MacGearailt getting fleeced one year. "Jesus Tomás, at least give me back a fiver!'

You might gather we'd be like outsized children, but the train was brilliant for getting us to tune out of the serious business ahead.

The messing was just a safety valve, a way of making sure that the game didn't consume you whole. When the time came, we always knew when to be deadly serious.

You see, I hated the team meetings. In my last few years, we usually stayed in Dunboyne and the nerves would be hopping that Saturday night when management would start going through the match detail. Whoever was sitting beside me, I was always the same. "Lord God, I wish the game was on now!"

My uncle, Tom, might call in for a cup of tea and there'd probably be a phonecall from Páidí.

Later on, you'd be in the room, flicking over and back to RTE's 'Up for the Match', nearly tormenting yourself. I know it's only a bit of craic, but you're half-afraid you'll hear someone say the wrong thing.

To lighten the mood, the juvenile delinquency might return. Maybe a water-fight up and down the corridor. Or a drop of milk dumped on one of the lads below from a bedroom window. Pure, pure childish, escapism really.

Over the years, my room-mates were Darragh, Eamonn Fitzmaurice and Paul Galvin. The most important thing about a room-mate was that, if you didn't want to talk, that it didn't feel strained. That it was a comfortable silence.

There's a bit of a snoring problem that runs through the Ó Sés, though. Darragh and I might be throwing magazines at one another if it started. Or Paul used let out this high-pitched roar that would frighten the life out of me. And I'd be "Alright, alright, sorry about that Paul!"

I roomed with him in an apartment at one of the warm-weather camps in Portugal and woke up one morning to find him outside, sleeping on a couch. "I'm sick of it Tomás!"

On final morning, the one person Darragh and I always dodged was the dietician. We'd slip over to a corner of the dining-room and ask quietly for a few rashers and sausages. Just something to get the thirst up for the day, so we'd be sure to drink enough water!

Then the longest wait of your whole life. Maybe three hours of killing time. Up and down the stairs. Walking aimlessly, stopping to watch absolute rubbish on the TV. Trust me, Sunday morning television is muck.

Then down to eat a full dinner at noon. It used to be spaghetti bolognese, which I never liked. I'd usually have dry chicken and pasta.

Then in one All-Ireland final, a few of us were standing on the goal-line, facing a '50, when Seamus Moynihan turned and let out a roar. "That f***ing bolognese is coming up my throat, it keeps repeating!" I remember Darragh taking a fit of laughing at him. That was the last we saw of bolognese!

You'd hear a pin drop at the final team meeting, phones switched off, game-faces on. No laughing and little enough talking now. We'd be serious as soldiers going to the front.

Everyone would have their own place on the bus too. Mine was left-hand side, maybe four seats back, usually next to Darragh. Mike Quirke would always be in front of me, Declan O'Sullivan alongside; Tom Sullivan and Aidan O'Mahony in front of them again. Tom so laid-back, he was almost horizontal.

I was different. I had to have my routine, everything geared towards one thing. A performance.

On the bus-ride in, I might see a fella walking a dog or maybe someone fishing on the canal, and I'd be thinking, 'Jesus wouldn't it be great to be him for the next four or five hours!' Not a care in the world. You'd have this huge knot in the stomach, your head full of some fast wing-forward coming to get you.

There's nothing more important at that moment than your head. Bar 2006, I never went into an All-Ireland final where I wasn't right. Jack O'Connor was probably questioning my form inside in training and, it's true, in '06, it wasn't great. But the way Jack was trying to get me right just didn't work for me. I was getting crankier and crankier.

I learned from that, found my own ways of sorting out the clutter.

That said, the nerves before a final never lessened with the years. In some ways, maybe you didn't want them to. I don't know is there a way to actually befriend fear, but I suspect there might be.

The first three steps onto the field would be the highlight of the whole weekend for me. You'd hear the roar and get this rush. But then, as often as not, the warm-up would leave me feeling shattered. I'd turn to Darragh. "Jesus Christ, I'm f***ed!"

But you're not of course. It's as if your body is just settling itself, bracing. Then the whistle goes, the ball flies in and you stop thinking. You zone out everything bar what you're supposed to do. That's what I will especially miss.

I'm not saying I regret retiring. My time was up and I'm sure it was the right decision. But, in that second half against Mayo, I wanted to be inside in the middle of it. I was jerking in my seat, playing the game from the stand.

And my dreams would suggest there's something in my sub-conscious that isn't letting go yet. I'll admit I'd love to be there now, just soaking up the energy of a group ready for something close to war. But I'm a supporter now and I'm 100pc behind them.

There's a saying in Kerry that, if you kick a bad pass in training, "Ah, in the white heat, you'll be grand!" And they will be.

Irish Independent