THE fifth All-Ireland Senior Final appearance in the county's history will represent the perfect conclusion to a breathless day of triple header action at Croke Park for Tyrone supporters this Sunday afternoon.
With the replayed Munster duel featuring Kerry and Cork, sandwiched in between the Red Hands twin pronged assault on national honours at minor and senior level, no-one will leave Dublin feeling short-changed with over four hours of quality Championship football on the menu.
Tyrone under-18s are first into action at 12.15pm as they battle it out with Meath for a spot in the Thomas Markham Cup decider, and that will be proceeded by the second instalment of the Kingdom's saga against fierce rivals Cork at 2pm, the Rebels having secured a most unlikely draw with two late goals last weekend.
Then completing the mouth-watering schedule at 4pm is the second senior semi-final in which Mickey Harte's charges lock horns with unfancied Wexford, who have provided the Cinderella story of 2008.
Tyrone however have no notion of extending the Yellowbellies romantic journey much further and after accounting for Dublin in such scintillating fashion in the Quarter-Final a fortnight ago, are warm favourites to progress to the Sam Maguire showdown.
Jason Ryan's upstarts through have shown they are no respecters of reputations, particularly when it comes to northern opposition. They got the better of Fermanagh in the National League Division Three Final back in the spring, and then followed up with commendable Championship triumphs over Down and most notably Ulster champions Armagh to seal a semi-final berth.
The mercurial Mattie Forde scored the all-important goal eight minutes from time which cemented a fully-warranted 1-14 to 0-12 victory over the pedestrian Orchard men and leaves the Leinster County on the cusp of clinching a spot in the All-Ireland Football Final for the first time since 1918.
Their 0-5 to 0-4 victory in that final some ninety years ago against Tipperary was the last in their their much fabled four in a row sequence of All-Irelands spanning the duration of the First World War but during the intervening period, Wexford has become much more renowned as a hurling county.
Tyrone have had slightly (?) longer to wait to clinch the ultimate accolade in the game. Whereas Wexford won the first of their five All-Irelands back in 1893 when defeating Cork at Phoenix Park 1-1 to 0-1 (a goal back then was equal to five points) , it was a mere one hundred and ten years later that Sam Maguire finally took up residence in the O'Neill County.
Yet while the history books have Wexford placed a few rungs higher in the Footballing Roll of Honour there's no doubts that in modern times it's Tyrone who are one of the giants of the game.
They again underlined their supremacy and pedigree with that stunning twelve point demolition of Dublin at wet and windy Croke Park on Saturday week last. The fact that this same Dublin team annihilated Wexford by 23 points in their previous outing in the Leinster Final would suggest that the Red Hands should enjoy a cakewalk on Sunday afternoon. However basic logic has had little part to play in this summer's Championship to date, so why should it become an overbearing factor now.
The most startling aspect of Tyrone's performance the last day was the intensity, workrate and exceptional ball-handling skills they exhibited. Startling because there had been little suggestion over the last two seasons that they had a seventy minute showing of this calibre in their locker.
The big question now is can they sustain it, or was it the last defiant act of a team in decline? Sunday will provide a clearer answer to this imponderable.
The inspiring form the last day of team captain Brian Dooher, effective targetman Sean Cavanagh, midfield dynamo Enda McGinley and the composure and class of the McGuigan and McMahon brothers in various sectors of the field, suggest that Tyrone could yet have one or two notable displays up their sleeve.
Certainly the Red Hands track record in All-Ireland semi-finals over the last twenty odd years also augurs well for the weekend. Aside from the Mayo loss in 1989, Tyrone have won the other four matches they have featured in at this stage of the competition ('86, '95, 03 and '05).
The most recent of course was that nerve-tingling one point victory over arch rivals Armagh, with Peter Canavan nonchalantly splitting the posts at the Hill 16 End with an injury-time free to edge the spoils.
Despite Wexford's relatively low profile no-one would be overly surprised if Sunday's clash throws up a similarly dramatic scenario.
Wind the clock back two months and few bar the most fervent Red Hand backer would have foreseen such an outcome where a third Sam Maguire crown in five seasons was now a realistic objective.
With thousands of supporters expected to make the pilgrimage south to the Jones Road venue the whole county has been galvanised by the vibrant nature of the display against Dublin.
It's perhaps unrealistic to expect the team to scale the heights that they demonstrated in the Metropolitans massacre, with semi-finals traditionally dour, cagey affairs, but at this stage in proceedings it's all about the result.
