Last men standing

WE came to the big house desperate for something seismic, a definitive judgement. Answers to impossible questions that only great occasions and sides provide.

Now we know. Tyrone, under Mickey Harte and haunted by the memory of a dead friend, are that side.

Kerry are good, very good. But that will be no consolation to them today. They are the second best side in Ireland, and that won't do in the south west.

Thirteen Championship wins out of fourteen in two years is a lot, but those wins have dated overnight.

Someone has stolen their aura.

"We felt it would take a great side to beat us and that's the way it worked out," sighed a semi-clothed Jack O'Connor in the sanctity of the changing room.

"That's an exceptional Tyrone side, great pace, great support between the players. We didn't play too badly, but the fact we weren't in the heat of battle as often as they were told against us."

Ah, the longest road. GAA president Sean Kelly said it might be the greatest Championship success ever, and he could have been just referring to the final.

But Mickey Harte's squad has travelled further than 2005. They've played ten matches in this campaign, beating three provincial champions along the way. Harte believes they defeated "a great Kerry team" yesterday in Croke Park, but the inspiration of their success was a 16th man.

"We had a very rough 2004. You try, but your heart doesn't be in it," said Harte. "But I thank God we've had this chance to play and win a final in a manner Cormac McAnallen would have been proud.

"Kerry badly wanted their two in a row, but our boys wanted it more and I know who they wanted it for. Those words from Cormac have been echoing in our ears since the day he said them - 'At 23 I have an All-Ireland but I don't want to look back on my career and wonder why I didn't have more'. The rest of us had to get more, we had to get more and we couldn't speak about it until today. But now we can say 'Cormac, it's been done for you'."

It's wrong to presume their entire motivation is driven by respect for a lost friend. Tyrone were a wrecking ball yesterday, a fusion of furies that attacked every sense. But they thrive on it: "That game tested us to the limit," Harte smiled. "To win any game is good, to win any final is fantastic. But to win it when you are pushed to the limit, that's the ultimate."

And they gave Kerry a goal start. There was only seven minutes played when the Kingdom adorned two spectacular early points from Cooper and Brosnan with a rapier's goal. The shovel work was done by Paul Galvin and Cooper. Dara Ó Cinnéide made the net dance.

It gave Kerry a healthy 1-2 to 0-2 lead, and their franchise player was already shaping the game. But by half-time, their mentors were tending wounds, physical and mental. Even the audience was muted, gasping for breath. It was a manic 37 minutes, topped off by Tyrone's goal - only their second final goal in history. It was sublimely created and finished, but the sub-plot was instructive. When Owen Mulligan gathered possession on the edge of the small square, only Paul Galvin - a wing forward - was at home minding the house. Kerry's defence had been pulled asunder by the fluidity and movement of their opponents. The Kingdom never orchestrated the same panic at the other end. Already you sensed their grip on the championship loosening.

"They just seemed to want it more, they seemed hungrier," said Kerry defender Tom O'Sullivan, almost in disbelief. "They formed a line between their own full and half back line, and we found it hard to get the ball in low to the full forward line."

Though Marc Ó Sé, Seamus Moynihan and Tomás Ó Sé drove out of defence, they were regularly rebuffed and occasionally robbed of possession. Six of Tyrone's nine first half scores came off Kerry turnovers, including Canavan's 37th minute goal.

"We turned over ball a few times which cost us scores, but the goal gave them the momentum that we could never quite get back," said O'Connor. Harte agreed. "A seriously important moment."

In the second period his toilers were still hijacking Kerry possession. William Kirby - one of the loser's outstanding performers - was caught in sideline possession, and saw the turnover pointed by Stephen O'Neill.

Tyrone went five up through Mulligan; you knew Kerry wouldn't capitulate, but the power was with Harte's side. Darragh Ó Sé pointed, then Tomás pounced for an unlikely goal. Just maybe....

There was now a point in it, and 19 minutes remaining. Plenty of time.

Kerry might quibble with the referee over two massive decisions in this period - one a free given to Peter Canavan - but it was a testament to their durability that they were still in touch at that stage.

"Even with their second goal I knew we could do it," insisted midfielder Sean Cavanagh. "We've been there before and Kerry hadn't. That was important."

In truth, that was everything.

Said Jack O'Connor: "We did our best in training to recreate that sense of intensity, but you couldn't replicate the battle out there, nor the ones that Tyrone had already been through against Armagh and Dublin."

It was O'Connor's first Championship defeat as Kerry manager. "Bad game to lose," he sighed. Only in the darkest hour.