Sideline Cut: Cork scares me. The name, the place, the people, the history, the accent: everything about dere and dem leaves me faintly terrified, writes Keith Duggan.

I know that virtually everybody outside of Cork feels precisely the same way but as a nation we just won't admit it. We dare not, for heaven's sake, without throwing in the towel and ceding control of this hapless island entirely.

Imagine an Ireland run by Corkies. Frank Murphy as our leader. Kerry would be a designated Gulag and Tipperary would be preserved and ration-fed purely so Corkies could come to Thurles and win on Munster final Sundays. But otherwise it would be the land of milk and honey, with nights at the Opera House and picnics on da banks, de paper on all the newsstands and a national soccer team full of players who speak and think and play like Roy Keane. We would all possess umpteen hurling titles, could all genuinely claim Sonia and would probably win the World Cup inside ten years.

Whenever I travel to Cork, it is with considerable trepidation. For a long time, I assured myself that I did not like Cork - or the city at any rate - that it had a kind of pre-war quality, with low wattage street-lights and too many dark nooks and crannies and way too many wisecracking Corkies.

Any outsider I knew that ever spent time there I pressed for affirmation of my prejudices. But no. Brilliant crack. Sound people. Might just move there.

Last time I was down there was to interview some or all (or as it transpired, none) of the Cork hurlers, who this weekend must suffer the exasperation of travelling to Dublin to collect another All-Ireland title.

Needless to say, it was a day dreamed up by the gods, with the Lee sparkling and Corkies sipping coffees along the shaded cobbled streets behind the Grand Parade, each and every one of them looking like they had just stepped from a Bertolucci film and all merrily agreeing it was a fine thing to be from Cork.

Everybody was in a good and generous mood and this is one of most disconcerting aspects about Corkonian life. The mood there always seems good. Whereas the rest of us just breathe in oxygen, Corkies inhale a native air that guarantees wellbeing and serenity and humour and a remorseless capacity for beating non-Corkies at sports.

I remember well the moment I became convinced that Cork would again prevail in the hurling business this year. It was a fine summer's evening (though not as fine as in Cork, according to Met Éireann, where the weather was best that day by several degrees) and I was listening to the radio show The Last Word (post-Dunphy). Previewing the season ahead, Tipperaryman John McIntyre delivered a sober and riveting account of the fortunes and downturns that lay ahead. Wexfordman Liam Griffin silenced nature with a passionate and sorrowful elegy on the state of the game.

And then the host, Matt Cooper, piped up. The Coop is a Corkie and something of a sports fiend and, in an accent shrilly imbued with essence of Cork, he advised his two guests that Cork would probably win because they had Donal O'Grady, the Coop's old schoolmaster at North Monastery, in charge. The opinion was delivered not as a boast or a challenge but merely as a probable and purely Corkonian outcome. And whoooooosh! In that moment, every inherited ounce of knowledge about Cork came cascading upon me. Growing up on the other end of the western seaboard, we were far enough away from Cork to be left to our own insular and largely harmless devices.

It was a distant place that housed the names that filled our schoolbooks: Michael Collins, Kevin Barry, Frank O'Connor, Seán Ó Faoláin, Jack Lynch. And of course, in that sense, Cork was all over us. It was a rare day a Corkonian passed through our town - Finnish lads yes, the odd Muscovite, an Eskimo or two, but rarely if ever a Corkie. They had no need, knowing we would be reading all about them courtesy of the educational system.

The impression left by stories like Up The Bare Stairs was that Cork was fascinating, frightening and definitely strong on schooling; that the headmaster was king.

And so it made sense that the emergence of Maistir O'Grady could but lead to bright things for this year's crop of hurlers. That evening in Cork was a lesson in many respects: I don't think I was alone in writing out "I must not ask silly questions" one hundred times before I even dared approach the North Mon man. Just in case. And I swear I saw him direct several senior press men to stand in the corner as I was leaving.

So on the eve of another All-Ireland hurling final between the sultans of the game, it is hard not to be just a little bit afraid for Kilkenny. It is all set up too perfectly - all the talk of the emergence of a new Kilkenny dynasty, of DJ at last lifting the McCarthy Cup as captain, of destiny, of revenge for 1999. Not that Kilkenny are doing the talking, but still, it is being said.

And all the while, you think of the Corkies riding stealthily up to the capital by train, the preferred mode of transport for All-Ireland-winning teams from the Rebel county. Well groomed and polite to the ticket conductor, nudging at the sight of a pretty girl in Portlaoise station and passing the journey by wading into strong tea and sandwiches and performing poetry recitals for the schoolmaster. Arguing about Ring's greatest game.

Life is dangerous when Cork teams are not fancied. Cork are alone among peoples in that they enjoy being fancied and take it as a slight when they are not. I remember being among Cork people in the old Hogan Stand for the All-Ireland finals of 1986 and again in 1990, when they taught all of Galway the lesson of not paying them enough wolf whistles beforehand. And afterwards, they did not gloat - it is a myth that Corkonians are conceited in victory. Instead they retreat into a mood of quiet and amused satisfaction that comes with the knowledge that God is, after all, a Corkman.

Older if not wiser now, I have reached the stage in life when I can take a drink with Corkies without passing out from pure intimidation. Long ago I stopped being surprised at the fact that almost all of them are highly likeable creatures - great fun, excitable, at pains to pretend you can be born outside of Cork and still have a fulfilling and well-rounded life.

And yet every time I see Cork teams run out onto the field Ó Faoláin's unforgettable summary of his own comes to mind: "The gentlest are the most cruel. Smilers are the worst." When Donal O'Grady smiles, you hear the cello from Jaws.

Look, it's like this. The nation expects from Kilkenny tomorrow. This little corner is not so sure. Above all defeats to Cork down the years of this rivalry, a loss tomorrow would bankrupt reason from a Kilkenny perspective.

But take caution. There are days when no beings on earth can stop Cork. Perfection just happens for them - and why is as much a mystery to the Corkies as it is to the rest of us.

We will know fairly early tomorrow if it is going to be one of those anarchic days of red flags waving. You will be able to smell it in the air. And if so, there is no point in the rest of us fighting it or being afraid anymore. Own up to it. Inside every one of us is a Cork man fighting to get out.