WATCH: Eamonn Fitzmaurice pushing class of ‘15 to scale new heights

They just grinded it out. And in their manager Kerry have someone who continues to extract every last drop out of them.

You go through this Kerry team and they’re hardly as irresistible or as explosive or downright talented as the county’s teams of the noughties. The nucleus of those sides was made up of stars in their prime. Just look at the 2007 team: The three Ó Sés, Declan, Donaghy, Gooch, Galvin, all in their pomp, with the likes of Tom O’Sullivan and Eoin Brosnan at the height of their powers as well.

This side has only a couple of players of that stars in their prime profile — James O’Donoghue and David Moran —for a star at the peak of his powers is something now surely Ogie’s young fella has to be recognised as.

Instead this side has to rely more on certain other categories of player, all of which Saturday night demonstrated Eamonn Fitzmaurice is judiciously utilising.

There’s the Veteran Class, which he has ingeniously recycled, regenerated, and rejuvenated. In reinstating Aidan O’Mahony to the starting lineup, it wasn’t just a case of the old dog for the hard road as going with a dog of war.

Some of O’Mahony’s means were by foul: His 10th minute on-the-ball fist into the side of Donncha O’Connor seriously softened the Corkman, and must have contributed to his otherwise premature substitution in the 46th minute. But so much else of his play was a masterclass in the soft skills, of anticipation, sweeping, and linking the play. And to think five years ago people thought he was washed up. Here he is, all these years later, seven precisely on from when he infamously clashed with O’Connor in an All Ireland semi-final — and he’s still tormenting the Ballydesmond man.

Bryan Sheehan belongs in the same category. He’s been in and out of the Kerry team for 10 years now, no more so than last year when he didn’t start either of Kerry’s last three games. Yet only for him and another member of the 2014 Veteran Class, Declan O’Sullivan, Kerry might not have made it out of Ennis last June. On Saturday night Sheehan was just as instrumental in victory. In conditions reminiscent of the coldest, windiest nights in the old Thomond Park and with scores at a premium, Sheehan was this game’s O’Gara with his outrageous capacity to convert dead balls and spray the ball into the corners.

And now also in this subset of player alongside Marc Ó Sé and Kieran Donaghy is one Colm Cooper. There were a lot of reasons why Kerry ultimately won but to put it bluntly, it turned on his pass, his awareness. Twenty-five minutes earlier Paddy Kelly had similarly tried to carve out a goal from a quick free. Kelly’s attempt didn’t come off. Cooper’s did. Right there you had a four-point swing in a five-point game.

Probably the constituency that best testifies the work of Fitzmaurice is the Unheralded Younger Player brigade, a group of players that were reared on being beaten by Cork — sometimes severely — at underage. In this bracket you have Fionn Fitzgerald, Paul Murphy, Jonathon Lyne, Michael Geaney, and Stephen O’Brien but last Saturday night one of them went to another level. Shane Enright was everything you’d want in a corner back: Aggressive and tenacious, yet disciplined; his shadowing of Brian Hurley a credit to him and the work of Fitzmaurice and Cian O’Neill on the training ground.

Then there’s Anthony Maher who, along with Johnny Buckley, is a blue-collar player in his prime. In leaving him out for the drawn game, even Fitzmaurice might not have fully appreciated what he has in the Duagh man. Maher may not make the shortlist of nominations for greatest Kerry midfielders of all time but he is the perfect complement to the alpha midfielder David Moran has become, and between them they now make up the most formidable and complete midfield in the country.

It’s most obvious in their capacity to win the ball. Between them they registered 55 possessions on Saturday evening. The best and proudest of midfields target something as small but as telling as both throw-ins. Moran won both throw-ins on Saturday.

What’s underestimated is their use of the ball. In one early two-minute spell Moran sprayed a 30-yard foot pass off either foot into James O’Donoghue. Maher also deftly kicked with both feet. No other midfield tandem can boast that.

Ultimately Kerry won last Saturday night because they won that battle around the middle. They hammered the hammer. Alan O’Connor was a peripheral and even sometimes distracted figure from the start — he was highly fortunate none of the officials or RTÉ cameras captured his clash of heads that only incurred a yellow card — and ultimately he didn’t have enough backup in the physical stakes.

You look at the changes Eamonn Fitzmaurice made from the last day and he opted for bigger men. Paul Geaney is taller, stronger than Barry John Keane. Stephen O’Brien made way to accommodate Maher. Nothing was lost in the power stakes in O’Mahony and Paul Murphy replacing Peter Crowley and Fionn Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, with Fintan Goold losing out on a starting spot, Kevin O’Driscoll was contesting the throw-in with Moran and Maher. Cork were plucky last Saturday, but not powerful enough.

It’s why some comments after the drawn game didn’t stand up to scrutiny: The notion that there’d never been a fitter Cork team, a team fitter than Kerry. Pat Flanagan has done some sterling work since teaming up with Brian Cuthbert but such myth-spreading was both an insult to Cian O’Neill’s work in Kerry and Aidan O’Connell’s with Conor Counihan’s teams.

Cuthbert himself is ably developing a class of unheralded, younger players. Whatever else happens this season, Cork have found championship performers in the O’Driscolls, especially centre back Brian O’Driscoll and Stephen Cronin. Yet despite the return to form of sorts of Paul Kerrigan and Paddy Kelly, you wonder could more have been done to have a better Veteran Class. Put it this way: Paudie Kissane is the same age as Aidan O’Mahony.

If the Cork powers-that-be are as cute as they’re renowned for, they should give serious consideration to looking to play any game against Kerry next year in Thurles.

For all the talk of how Cork teams and fans love Killarney, it can be overlooked that Kerry love playing there just as much and play there a lot more. If there’s one pilgrimage Cork GAA fans relish as much as Killarney in July or Croke Park in September, it’s any trip to Tipp. It’s all fine and well for Cork to have a string of further games down the line against the old enemy played in the revamped Páirc Uí Chaoimh: There’s an obligation to this current team to give it the best chance it can to compete and at this stage in their life cycle, a third consecutive traipse down to Killarney could be too much. Play Thurles in 2016 and it removes home advantage from Kerry, throws more novelty into the grand old fixture and Cork still get to unveil the new Páirc in 2017.

For now, they need to get more out of their full forward line. Brian Hurley might be energised at the thought of playing on someone else other than Shane Enright, especially in Croke Park; he scored 1-5 in his last championship game up there.

Meanwhile, as Cork dried their clothes and their sorrows yesterday, Kerry quietly celebrated another Munster title. In all the talk of Mayo going for five in a row in Connacht and a third consecutive Monaghan-Donegal final in Ulster, it’s gone without any fanfare that they’ve now won three on the trot in Munster under Fitzmaurice.

No one in 2012 could have seen them doing that, Cork allowing that.