All is changed, changed utterly

How Tom Humphriesdescribed Tyrone's tactical coup as they shocked Kerry to record a 0-13 to 0-6 victory in the All-Ireland semi-final at Croke Park

BRACE YOURSELF for one of those weeks. Gaelic Football in the Dock! Where Has the Game Gone Wrong ? Call This Entertainment? Yep, that's right, the sports writing of the last atrocity.

Kerry and Tyrone shared 73 innumerable punches, great handfuls of each others' jerseys and lots of ugliness at Croke Park yesterday. There's a media inquisition coming around that bend. Bet your life on it.

The salient facts first. Tyrone reached the All-Ireland final and won't give a damn that the route they took wasn't scenic. Kerry lost and in Kerry defeat in a beautiful game is as hard to take as defeat in an ugly game. There will be fallout there too.

For the rest of us it's all aesthetics. This was as bad a game of football as has been seen in a long time. Had it been marketed as a Rugby League game it might explain a few things but it wouldn't make it any more edifying

And there's a terrible karma to the whole thing. What has gone around is about to come around and slap us in the face like an old kipper. Stand up now if you were among those bellyaching about the arid awfulness of Ulster football earlier this year.

Have you ever used the phrase "pullers and draggers big day out?" Have you ever thought that feuds just weren't fun? Have you ever wondered if Ulster folk don't measure the lateness of their tackles using sundials? Do you think tickets for games in Clones should carry government health warnings? Stand up and be counted then because for your punishment you're going to have to watch next month's all-Ulster final.

It could be gruesome. Then again, maybe not. We thought , after all, that yesterday's farrago would be the game of the summer. We thought it would be a celebration of dashing forward play, a feast of scores, a firework display. Today 58,687 paying customers are still regretting that misapprehension.

We could count the ways in which we were wrong.

First, Tyrone can win without Peter Canavan. He went off early yesterday with what looked like ankle ligament trouble. Second, Kerry have not got the greatest collection of forwards in the history of the game. Certainly yesterday they proved that they could whip four of their starting six off and replace them without altering the standard of their play. But that was their problem not their salvation.

Other things we were wrong about? Well, Kerry have very little heart. Kerry and Tyrone and a margin of seven points? Who couldn't but think of 1986? Kerry were different back then, though. They played a decent second half yesterday without truly looking like overturning Tyrone's lead.

And Tyrone can defend. They can defend like Armagh defend which doesn't bode well should they meet next month. They can defend with a maginot line of shirts strung behind the ball. It ain't pretty but Tyrone can defend in a way Kerry can't. Indeed, they can defend in a way that Kerry mightn't want to.

"It's the first time I have ever played against a team with these kind of tactics," said Páidí Ó Sé. "Whether it's cynical or not they are in an All-Ireland final. It's immaterial what I think of it."

What else? We weren't wrong about the standard of refereeing. Gerry Kinneavy stood for so long yesterday holding a particular pose that you could have been mistaken into thinking that he was modelling for a recast of the Statue of Liberty, with a chastising yellow card replacing the inspirational torch.

The yellow card saw plenty of action but Gerry had a bad day at the office.

The game itself, the small part of it that was football? Well Tyrone took off with the speed of startled cats, darting here and there until they were six points up after 20 minutes and prepared to take a breath. In that period they lost Canavan when he went over on an ankle but they had the luxury of replacing him with Stephen O'Neill who could play on any team in the country.

Kerry were awful but after the break they were less awful. John Crowley was exempt from the general malaise which struck their forwards and sparked the odd good thing.

Séamus Moynihan, freed from full back hell by Tyrone's ploy of just leaving two forwards inside, drifted further afield but his impact was limited by Tyrone's drift net defensive tactic.

At one stage Kerry narrowed the gap to four points with eight minutes remaining and one thought that a goal could burst the game open. Instead, Stephen O'Neill popped over a Tyrone point and instead the door shut.

Bad as it was, the game had the feeling of historical significance. It was the first time Tyrone had beaten Munster opposition in a big Croke Park game.

It was another exhibition of the mere mortality of Kerry, a county whom we thought could accumulate All-Irelands merely by opening their mouths and catching them on the tip of their flicking tongues.

Perhaps, too, it marked Ó Sé's goodbye. He was happy enough to tease about it afterwards when asked if he would be back.

"I suppose today in fairness," he said and took a pause to look around, "I have been involved with football for quite a long time . . ." Another pause which freezes every hack gathered around him. Páidí sounds valedictorian.

"Since 1973 in fact and I think I owe it to myself . . ." This is it. Páidí is going to say goodbye . . . "and I owe it to my family . . ." Definitely. This latest pause is presidential. "Not to be making a decision today or the day after."

Everyone breathes again.

And Tyrone?

They cared not a whit what anyone thought of the game. They promised more and harder next month.

"If we fail then the season will be a disaster. We know what will be coming. It will be harder and more physical in the final," said Ger Cavlan.

"If we play either team," said Ryan McMenamin of Donegal and Armagh, "it could be more intense than that there. Slightly rougher." And he went off chuckling to himself.

Don't say you haven't been warned.