The breathless sequence of hits and tackles is hazy now, two decades on. It remains, though, almost too frenetic in its ferocity to chart.
Try it in slow motion or using playback, and it’s still tricky with white jerseys coming in from every angle.
But those famous/infamous and iconic 20 seconds of the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final were the launchpad for a standout 20 year rivalry that lives on today.
The upstarts, emerging from the North to buffet the aristocrats from the South around like ragdolls under the Hogan stand.
And doing it with an intensity we had never seen the likes of before - or probably since.
It happened 15 minutes into the game, with Tyrone 0-4 to 0-0 up.
Kerry would fail to score until Colm Cooper’s 25th minute point, such was the relentlessness of what they were facing at a packed Croke Park.
On RTE co-commentary, Martin Carney said Tyrone were “showing no respect whatsoever,” and like “a pack of ravenous dogs.”
He also praised their, “Fantastic spirit and fantastic enthusiasm.”
Red Hand star Owen Mulligan recalls that Mickey Harte had Tyrone “Psychos for the ball.”
It was one of their mantras.
“Nothing else, only the ball matters,” says Mulligan. “The ball had to be won. No matter how we get it back, we get it back.
“It was hunt, hunt, hunt.
“We were described in the paper as ravenous dogs. Harte loved that.
“I remember back in training he read out what we were called. He was really, really proud. And that’s what it was all about.
“We needed to bring something to beat Kerry, something to say, ‘Right, we are here, we are total challengers for the title,’ and that’s what we did.”
If it was diving on break ball, or tackling in packs, whatever it took to get that ball into the hands of a white jersey.
Mulligan says their youthful trainer Paddy Tally - with the current Kerry team - was “light years ahead of his time.”
“When we drew Kerry, our training was stepped up,” he recalls. “Paddy Tally just said, ‘This is the ultimate challenge. We have to train like we have never trained before.’
“We were training flat out. The sessions were absolutely shocking but you felt good after it and they were mostly tailored around tackling. Tackling hard. Disciplined tackling.
“And getting in their face because Harte said Kerry are never challenged until the quarter-final and semi-final and we are going to give them the challenge.
“So we need to meet them with something different, something they have never met before.
“Harte had pulled the forwards when he first came in. I knew what he was all about.
“He was always (saying), ‘Your best defender has to be your number 15.’
“Of course, I was number 15 and I was going through the motions tackling.
“I thought a forward was just there for putting the balls over the bar and in the net.
“From an early age he (Harte) was trying to drive that into me. Come seniors, he was really driving it into me.
“You kind of buy into those things. You don’t want to do them, but you know it’s right.
“You want to be front page scoring 1-4. You are not going to be remembered for a hand in tackle or a block.
“That was my take on it, but at the end of the day you are a team player and you want to do the best for your team. I knew the forwards needed to bring something else.
“When the ball was lost the forwards tackled like hell that day, not to let them out. Maybe a wee cynical foul here and there, but everything helps.
“Tally was streets ahead of his time when it came to preparing for a match - as was Harte.
“Tally, I thought was one of the best trainers Tyrone ever ahead along with God rest him, along with Fergal McCann.
“He was all about disciplined tackling, hands in, hands out. Focus on the chest. Always come in with a second man, so you can bottle him up.
“Smother them. Try and make them overcarry and that’s what we did.
“If you are going to hit a man, you hit him right. Shoulder challenges, you be strong. He focused on the tackle bags in training. Rolling the tackle bags.
“There were so many techniques in those 20, 25 seconds that we did at training all year and not just the two weeks before it.
“Practising how to be disciplined and not give away the foul.”
It’s difficult to recall a sequence of tackling and hitting like it - before or since as Dara O Cinneide and then Eoin Brosnan were caught up in a storm of white jerseys.
Pat Spillane was disgusted by what unfolded in Tyrone’s shock victory (0-13 to 0-6) a real war of attrition refereed by Galway's Gerry Kinneavney, which Spillane noted had 72 frees.
Afterwards, the RTE pundit and Kerry eight-time All-Ireland winner coined one of the most infamous sound bites in GAA history.
‘Puke football,’ a term he apologised for live on RTE in 2021, while also revising his view to say that Tyrone, and not Kerry, were the team of the noughties.
Listen back on those 20 seconds and you can hear a growing crescendo from the crowd as every shoulder is greeted with a gutheral, primal roar.
“I remember when it started, tackling, tackling, tackling,” recalls Mulligan.
“Do you see when it ended, I couldn’t get a breath. It was as if I was winded and it was that hot, it just took the breath off us.
“It was like you were trying to get your second breath and it wouldn’t come, but it was hot and heavy now.”
The sequence starts with a four versus one.
No doubt this was close to the epicentre of that other catch-all term - ‘swarm tackling’ often uttered with contempt, as if any side could do it when they felt like it.
Very few have reached that state of body and mind.
Philip Jordan, Kevin Hughes, Owen Mulligan and Gavin Devlin surround O Cinneide.
He spills the ball for Brosnan, who is shouldered by Sean Cavanagh and knocked back into the bearpit.
O Cinneide wins it again, but is shouldered hard by Stephen O’Neill, arriving on the scene - and on the field as a sub for the injured Peter Canavan.
The Kerry forward is then hit by Hughes.
Hughes is back for another bite, this time at Brosnan who takes it on, hitting him with a shoulder.
Brosnan turns straight into Cavanagh, who delivers another shoulder.
Mulligan delivers yet another shoulder.
Then Enda McGinley arrives in, and along with Devlin, Cavanagh and Hughes, they surround Brosnan and win the ball back.
Darragh O’Se responds with a hit to turn the ball over again
But Hughes is there again to shoulder O’Se and dislodge the ball.
O’Se takes a wild swipe at the ball, which falls to Brian Dooher who is fouled.
According to Carney, Kerry look "shell shocked" and everyone can take a breath.
“He (O’Se) was one of the boys that was targeted, to be honest,” says Mulligan.
“There was a couple of boys.
“We were sent out to get in thier faces. We got in their faces. I wouldn’t say there was a soft spot in Kerry. We just thought they weren’t tested any time they came up the road.
“Us being the new boys on the block - we had won the minor and under-21s (All-Irelands) - we said we are going to test these boys.
“You read the Kerry boys’ articles and some of them would still talk about it. What they were hit by that day. It was great now, good times.
“I talk away to the Kerry boys. They’ve pulled me out of a couple of handlings down there that were well documented.
“We met Mick O’Dwyer in the old Jury’s three or four years ago and we had a good chat about it, the Kerry and Tyrones of old. It was good to listen to him and compare notes.
“It seems to be a big thing if you are down south. They mention the tackling and Kerry.
“I suppose when you look at it now, it was great to be a part of that because there is no fear of Kerry now when Tyrone draw them - and that never used to be the case.
“They just brushed us aside. They brushed everybody aside I suppose.
“In the bar (Mulligans in Cookstown), you are in there serving pints and the supporters can’t wait for the game on Saturday.”
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