KERRY REACTION:THIS SEEMS familiar yet it is very different. Two years ago we walked into The Ballsbridge Inn, formerly known as Jury's, on the morning after the night before. Only difference is back then Kerry were the newly-crowned Kings of September. Again.

That was 2009, this is 2011 and there is no Jack O’Connor to be found. Not an Ó Sé in sight either. Tadhg Kennelly is Down Under in Sydney. We spied big Tommy Walsh walking down Jones’s Road before Sunday’s game. An AFL player nowadays, Tommy was in his civvies.

Same setting then, yet this is a different Kerry aftermath.

Ger O’Keeffe is corralled into a corner. The long-serving selector is thankfully in the mood for reminiscing. He talks of the 1977 semi-final he played in when Dublin overran the greatest Kerry team of them all.

Strangely, he doesn’t seem as crushed as after other defeats. Maybe because Kerry know Dublin will rise and beat them once in a blue moon. And that’s all. He is certainly not as downbeat, nor is the collective mood, as in 2005 or 2008. Those All-Ireland final defeats to Tyrone forced Kerry to look deeply at themselves.

This time, O’Keeffe states, the loss came, well, out of the blue.

“Kerry always seem to lose the great games,” he offers us.

A Meath man quickly reminds him that the same can be said of Dublin.

“You don’t ever regret losing to the Dubs,” O’Keeffe explains. “If you want to be beaten by any team in an All-Ireland final, and play well, and our team played fantastically well, you have to give great credit to our players – we played fantastic on the day. We were just second best to the Dubs. Fair play to them.

“I’m delighted for them – they have been waiting a long time for it. I had five years against the Dubs when I played myself and I don’t begrudge them this one.”

O’Keeffe pays Dublin the highest compliment of all by conjuring up an image that still haunts Kerry people to this day. Stephen Cluxton’s long walk can now be placed alongside Séamus Darby’s gentle nudging of Tommy Doyle.

“Games are not over until . . . I played in an ’82 final against Offaly and there was a last-minute goal. Look, sport is like that. If everything is supposed to finish the way it’s expected to, well, then it is not sport. Unfortunately we came out on the wrong side of it.”

He wouldn’t drawn on the management team’s future and we couldn’t find O’Connor to ask him the same question.

After the glory of 2009, Kerry lost Darragh Ó Sé to retirement while Walsh and Kennelly went off playing Aussie Rules. Does he expect others to take their leave now?

“There are a lot of guys hurting after losing an All-Ireland final by a point. But that’s all for another day. There’ll be no decisions made by any of the players for a couple of weeks.”

“You must give credit to the Dubs – they beat a great Kerry team. It’s brilliant for them. They’re a great bunch of guys.

“Pat Gilroy is a terribly nice fella. He came into the dressingroom afterwards and you could feel how he felt for us. You have to give him credit for that.”

BETTING: 2011 Footballer Of The Year(Paddy Power): 2/5 Alan Brogan 15/8 Darran O'Sullivan 10/1 Bernard Brogan 10/1 Stephen Cluxton 12/1 Colm Cooper 33/1 Rory O'Carroll 50/1 Kevin Nolan 66/1 Karl Lacey 100/1 Declan O'Sullivan 100/1 Bryan Sheehan 100/1 Kevin McManamon