THE MIDDLE THIRD:WHEN CORK won their All-Ireland two years ago, I remember looking at them play Down in the final and thinking they were making very heavy weather of it. In all honesty, they were probably close to a point a man better than Down yet they let it come down to a kick of a ball in the end. That can happen to a team going for its first All-Ireland when it's really just a matter of getting across the line.

But watching them this year, both against Kerry last month and against Clare on Sunday, you can see a big difference in them. This Cork team are far better at winning than they were two years ago. They play better together and they have a deeper understanding of each other throughout the team. As well as all that, they’ve become far better at the cynical side of the game.

People don’t like to talk about that end of things very much but every serious team knows the score. As a player, when you wake up in the morning and face into a game, your pride will make you want to go out and play the most beautiful football the game has ever seen and to win with all the style in the world. But inside, you know the truth. You know that you’re going to have to bend the rules a bit if you want to be the champions.

Cork are definitely getting better at it. They’re big strong boys and they’re not shy about throwing themselves around. They realise that one of the big advantages they have over other teams is their size so they’re using it.

When the Clare midfielder Gary Brennan was starting to look like he could be a factor in the game the last day, Cork made sure to take care of him. It was nothing nasty, nothing underhand. They just recognised that there was a potential problem and they dealt with it by horsing into him and bringing their pure physical strength into every dealing they had with him. If they happened to go over the line, it was only by a small enough margin that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.

It’s a maturity thing. You don’t see it with minors – and nor should you.

The minor game on Sunday was a fine match and very enjoyable, even allowing for Kerry giving up a lead and losing to Tipperary. At one point in the second half, one of the Tipperary subs – I think Colin O’Riordan was the boy’s name – came and caught a ball like he’d grown up playing Aussie Rules. I’d have no hesitation in saying it was the best catch I’ve seen made at any level in the past five years.

I watched it in the company of Liam Hayes and David Brady and the three of us, former midfielders all, would have been very proud to have made it. I wouldn’t be a Kerryman if I didn’t think I’d be the one most likely to all the same!

That catch wouldn’t have been made in the senior game, certainly not against Cork. I’m not singling them out – I’m saying that no serious intercounty contender would have left him the time and space and ease of passage to rise, hang in the air and come down with the ball. Kerry wouldn’t, Dublin wouldn’t, Donegal wouldn’t. It just wouldn’t happen because there are too many guys on those teams who know what winning calls for. And there’s no getting away from it – sometimes it calls for being cynical and stopping a fella making a name for himself.

That Tipperary minor team is a special side, anyone can see it. They have so much composure, even when they go behind. They don’t give a damn about tradition, they don’t see anything to be afraid of in a Kerry jersey or a Cork jersey or anyone else they come up against. Their catching, their kicking, their score-taking is all very impressive as well. Their games are good to watch because all the skills are there but also because at minor level teams generally just go out and play. A minor player hasn’t learned yet how to cynically shut down an opposing player.

The more you mature, the better you are at solving problems on the field. When you’re young and starting out, you’d often find yourself looking over at the sideline and wondering what the next move is. You wait to be told.

But as you get older and more mature, you take on that responsibility yourself. You call your own shots. You sense the way a game is going and realise that the right thing to do right now is quieten the opposition player who is starting to get going.

I’m not talking about throwing belts around the place. You’ll get nowhere with that carry-on and really it’s just pointless. You’re no good to anybody sitting in the stand and even if you get away with it in the game, The Sunday Game boys will have their magnifying glasses out that night anyway.

Also, that loses sight of why you’re doing it. You’re not proving some manly point, you’re shutting a fella down so you can go and win the game.

It’s more subtle than throwing elbows. It’s accidentally-on-purpose getting in his way when he’s taking a run for a catch. It’s running through him when you’re tackling and maybe your arm goes a bit higher than you meant it to. If you’re at an intercounty game this weekend, keep an eye out for fellas who appear that bit clumsy – very often they’re nowhere near as clumsy as they look.

I remember playing a game a few years ago near the end of my career and being marked by a player who would be thought of by most people as a real big, honest workhorse of a fella. Most people looked at him and saw him run all day and the worst thing they’d say about him is that he was maybe a bit cumbersome and awkward when he went for the ball. The opposite is actually the case. This lad is always clocking and it’s completely calculated, as I found out when he caught me sweet with an elbow in one game. I had a ringing in my head for two days afterwards.

I was speaking to Liam Hayes about this on Sunday and one of the things he said was: “The better teams always do it better.”

I thought he was talking about his Meath team when he said that – he probably thought he was talking about our Kerry team! The more I’ve thought about it since the weekend, the more I’d have to admit that we had our moments as well as everybody else.

We’d all love to have this notion of ourselves as having been whiter than white but it’s never that simple.

The truth is that to be really successful, you need to have a strong element of cynicism in your play. You need to be prepared to do what’s needed in any game situation.

Would I have knocked a ball out of a fella’s hands to buy a few seconds for a free if the referee wasn’t looking?

Of course I would.

Would I have crossed the line with a tackle if it meant stopping my opposite number influencing a game for a while?

Absolutely.

You learn to play the opposition and you learn to play the referee. If you see a referee letting a push in the back go early on, you’re damn well going to give a little nudge on the next one just to see if it was a one-off or if that’s his way of looking at it for the day. If he looks like he’s going to be lenient on pulling on a loose ball on the ground, then straight away you’re going to assume you have a bit more licence in that area as well.

You have to read the referee and calculate how the day is affecting him.

When Tadhg Kennelly hopped off Nicholas Murphy at the beginning of the 2009 All-Ireland final, everybody on that pitch was watching Marty Duffy to see what he would do. When he didn’t send Tadhg off, you had some fellas who were maybe thinking that the ground rules were set here and he was going to let a good few things go.

But then you had to take into account the fact that this was the very first action of the game. Marty Duffy threw the ball in and literally straight away he had a huge decision to make. Whatever he decided to do was going to be some way controversial and, no more than the rest of us, he hadn’t time to settle into the game before he made it.

So as a player on the pitch, you had to work out what would be in his head in the next little spell after it. I remember thinking that he’d probably be a bit trigger-happy for the next while and that there was a chance that a loose belt could see some man get the line. So you back off a bit and let the action play out. It’s a game within a game and if you don’t play it, you won’t win.

Winning is the thing. Always remember that. It’s actually quite easy to justify these things when you win. The night of the All-Ireland, when you’re at the banquet and Sam Maguire is sitting on the table, nobody remembers the little transgressions you got away with. People talk in broad strokes when you win, they get down to the nitty-gritty when you lose.

We definitely got away with a few bits of cynical play because when people talked about our teams, they talked about the great scores and the fact that the Kerry public demand stylish play. You know the kind of thing – “Sure how could they be cynical when they have the Gooch?”

You see it as well when a new team comes along and takes everybody by surprise. The novelty factor means people tend to cut them a bit of slack in the initial phase.

Monaghan were a perfect example of this. When they came along in 2007, they were very physical and very aggressive but because people were happy to see a new county that looked to be on the verge of a breakthrough, not too many people commented on it. But when the second year kicked in, all of a sudden you have people saying that this was a dirty team. I played against them both years – I can assure you they were no different from one year to the next. The only thing that changed was how people perceived them.

Ultimately, you have to have the quality to go along with the cynicism or you won’t get anywhere. It’s a delicate line for a manager to tread because he’s going to get it in the neck either way. If a team is bad, it’s his fault. If a team is bad and is cynical with it, it’s still his fault. So you better make sure your team is good.

Cork are good. They’re better than good. They’re deservedly the front-runners for the All-Ireland and the fact that they’re that bit more cynical these days has made them better at winning. I admire it in them and I take my hat off to them for it. That’s what you have to be if you’re going to win All-Irelands.

They have everything they need now. They have at least another two gears to go through if they need to and they’re the team who are best-equipped to beat Donegal, which will be the toughest nut to crack for everyone.

I think I was looking at the All-Ireland champions on Sunday.