GAELIC GAMES:Where to start with this thundering fireball of a game? Perhaps at the end. Kerry won. Dublin lost. For the fourth year in succession Kerry play in the All-Ireland final. For the 12th year in succession Dublin don't. Cruel world? Not really.

The final will be a neighbourly skirmish between Kerry and Cork. If it matches the intensity of yesterday's semi-final there will be no requests for refunds.

In the meanwhile Dublin have to come to terms with their burgeoning reputation as a side who lose great matches. Football's fall guys. Thirty years to the week after a Dublin side beat Kerry in the greatest game in memory that is a hard pill to swallow.

History. Perhaps all history really suggests is that yesterday's outcome was cruelly inevitable. Maybe Kerry players are always suckled at the breast of some happy golden era or other while Dublin footballers, for all their surface strut, are reared with the fear of annihilation haunting them. These tight games in Croke Park offer no runners-up prizes or medals for gallantry. Dublin keep losing them. Kerry generally win them.

Yesterday Kerry were verb; Dublin were adjective. Kerry did; Dublin described.

The teams came onto the field and in their warm-up Dublin were as stylised and self-consciously elaborate as kabuki theatre. Kerry just looked brimming with energy and when they burst into a three-point lead it was clear the more optimistic assessments of Dublin's chances had been wishful thinking.

Kerry's two-point win was hewn out of a searing hunger they have no right to have and the pickpocket's coolness which is their birthright. When the world seemed to be against them, when the tide was blue and rising, Kerry's pulse rate scarcely changed. Hauled back to within a point having led by six midway through the second half, they took stock of the electrified stadium, the oppressive noise, the sheer, coltish energy of their opponents - and they just kept the ball. Pass after pass after pass necklaced together until Declan O'Sullivan bought a yard of grass and launched the ball from there over the Dublin crossbar. That killed the game.

Wow! This All-Ireland semi-final was a devastating demonstration of the powers of nature over those of nurture, the irresistibility of genius in the face of manufactured efficiency. Dublin's schooling over the past few years has been hard and comprehensive. Their flaws have been machined out. Some things are unalterable though. Some things are just in the DNA.

Dublin don't close the deal.

"Three years came down to half an hour's football," said Alan Brogan ruefully. "We gave it everything we had. If we got level we might have deserved a draw for the fightback."

This was a game Dublin had to win. It was a game they could have won. For a start, Kerry are not unbeatable; Meath, Armagh, Tyrone and Cork have all demonstrated that over the past few years against more experienced Kerry teams. Secondly, semi-finals are for winning, nothing else. Kerry have won the last four they played in. Dublin have lost the last three. Some things are in the DNA. Dublin had to win. They couldn't.

The differences between the sides could be expressed in the two-point margin or could be viewed better through the performances of key personnel. Kerry couldn't find Kieran Donaghy after a blistering start and Colm Cooper had a subdued first half. But both stepped up to the plate when needed.

Dublin's full-forward line never made that adjustment. Mark Vaughan had a poor game on the rookie corner back Pádraig Reidy, Conal Keaney was submerged by Tom O'Sullivan and Marc Ó Sé may have conceded three points to Alan Brogan but the Dublin star's influence went no further.

Or maybe the contribution of Declan O'Sullivan, moved inside from the wing to mark or be marked by Bryan Cullen, Dublin's vaunted centre back, conveys the difference.

O'Sullivan's incessant running and intelligent promptings bought him 1-4, his goal coming early in the second half. Cullen's duties in following O'Sullivan brought him forward often enough to score two points but a five-point difference is something any forward would settle for over his marker.

Or maybe it was on the sidelines. Kerry as advertised had the stronger bench and every substitution seemed to make them stronger. Darragh Ó Sé having to go off after 20 minutes with an injured hip might have been calamitous for morale, but Séamus Scanlon managed to keep Ciarán Whelan quiet until the final stages and Tommy Griffin came in and did well. The springing of two forwards from the bench late in the game and the return of Darragh Ó Sé with minutes left all had positive influences. Dublin's substitutions were more baffling than inspirational.

Or perhaps the differences is best illustrated by a bizarre sequence in the 67th minute when for no apparent reason Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton advanced more than 35 yards from his goal with ball in hand eschewing several opportunities to pass the thing. When he eventually found his reason and got rid of the ball he delivered it to the chest of Kieran Donaghy.

With Dublin's goal gaping wide Donaghy must have been tempted to continue the colourful sequence with a hoofed lob and the sort of goal which would have an eternal life of TV reruns. Instead he coolly picked out a pass and Kerry punished the indiscretion with a clinical point. At the other end Dublin missed a gaping goal chance and had a simple point attempt come back of the post. Small things which in aggregate ended their season.

Kerry roll on remorseless and splendid.

"We had the will to go out in the second half and take the game to Dublin," said their manager Pat O'Shea "When it came to the knockout stages against Monaghan the last day we knew every 35 minutes could be the last 35 minutes. We had certain goals this year. One was to go back to the All-Ireland final. We have got there."

Certain goals coolly realised. It's a DNA thing.