Even the most excitable supporter of Kingdom football would allow that they never looked invincible this summer, wrties KEITH DUGGAN

IT WILL go down as the year Kerry moved through the summer like shape-shifters. They were impossible to read and, through the long wet days of June and July, supposed to be bickering and unhappy: finished in everything but name.

Knocked out of the Munster championship by a dashing young Cork side, the most resolute team of recent years embarked on a strange journey. They looked shook and fearful after surviving a second-half onslaught from Longford.

They called upon their ascendancy credentials, luck and guile to hold off a gallant Sligo performance on a drenched evening in Tralee. They were rumoured by then to be a broken team, living on borrowed time, and when the quarter-final draw paired them against a Dublin team who had looked streamlined and organised in claiming a fifth successive Leinster championship, many in the capital (and elsewhere) looked forward to seeing Kerry get their comeuppance.

Seventy minutes later, the Dubs were annihilated in a way shocking to behold and, after that, the Kingdom were back in business. A controlled win in an awful semi-final against Meath and their season had come full circle, with Cork awaiting them once more.

Except this was September; this was Kerry time.

They happily disowned the fluctuations of form that had defined their season and prepared for this one-off encounter, delighting in the role of outsiders. Conor Counihan’s flamboyant young Cork team found themselves check-mated by the chess masters once again.

They had been so good and so convincing all summer that they entered the final under an unbearable weight of hope.

It wasn’t just that they had physically bossed All-Ireland champions Tyrone in the semi-final, despite playing the second half with 14 men. It wasn’t just that they had destroyed Donegal, the form team of the qualifiers, in a non-event of an All-Ireland quarter-final. It was that they owed Kerry, and that, sooner or later, to realise the potential of their under-21 harvests, they would have to beat their neighbours in Croke Park.

And they performed well – they looked, in the electrifying opening period, as if they were set to pulverise their rivals. But Kerry read these September days so well and the football season was distilled to the most familiar of scenes, with a Kerry team in control and holding their opposition just beyond harm’s length, calmly negotiating their path to the 36th title.

Afterwards, when the proposed on-field presentation had been abandoned, Paul Galvin stood on a tiny section of the pitch cordoned off by security men so the players could reflect on what had happened.

The Finuge man had his hands on his hips and a sliver of a smile. A penny for those thoughts would have been worth it. After a hellish year as Kerry captain in 2008, Galvin had put in a model season, and even on the flattest of days for his team he had been the beacon of calm and industry and of productive play: always, he had kept an eye on the main prize.

And here they were after everything: Kerry, All-Ireland champions. Again. Thirty-six down and counting.

How did they do it?

Bringing Tadhg Kennelly back from Australia helped. Jack O’Connor’s enticement of the retired Michael McCarthy was part of it. The steady form of Séamus Scanlon was invaluable.

But how did they do it?

Even the most excitable supporter of Kingdom football would allow that they never looked invincible this summer. Yet a forensic examination of their form might well unearth the roots of all so many previous Kerry victories. For Kerry are – and have always been – the masters of doing enough to win, of simply staying in the race until the day comes when they have to produce something special.

This year, Dublin in Croke Park provided that day. Only the Dublin players and management can know what happened to them when they took the field that Monday afternoon as favourites to win the match.

To outsiders, it looked as if all the traumas that this generation of players had endured in the All-Ireland series came flooding back when they caught sight of the familiar faces in green and gold. It was as if the enormity of what they had to do suddenly hit them and they froze. Pat Gilroy, the Dublin manager, famously compared the performance of his team to “startled earwigs”.

But they were more like horses spooked by lightning. It was a crushing disappointment for the swaying metropolitan army that follows this Dublin team.

The weirdness of the day was encapsulated by the confident break from defence from Kerry’s Mike McCarthy, back after three years’ retirement and in such flying, dominant form that you had to question what the hell the GAA obsession with training is all about.

McCarthy will never be mistaken for Cristiano Ronaldo when it comes to sporting showmanship, but whatever possessed him on this day, he ventured to head the ball back to himself as he moved up field. That gesture, whether by design or not, hammered home the fact Kerry would do what they pleased, that they owned the old stadium.

Their revival awakened hopes of another instalment of the Kerry-Tyrone September dual that has defined this decade. But once again, a second consecutive year of brilliance eluded Mickey Harte and his team. The omens were writ large in the sky when Seán Cavanagh had to withdraw with illness on the morning of the All-Ireland semi-final.

Tyrone are like trapeze artists. Either they are in perfect synchronicity or they fall.

Against Cork, they faced a stronger, younger team, and even the lone brilliance of Stephen O’Neill could not save them. It remains to be seen if they can summon the magic again.

Elsewhere, the championship marked notable progression by Kildare under Kieran McGeeney, but in retrospect they might have felt that August 2nd, when they lost out to Tyrone in a gripping quarter-final, was the day to make the great leap forward.

Monaghan confirmed their status as the unluckiest team in modern football. Having beaten Derry in a tough old match in Celtic Park, they lost out to their rivals in an out-and-out classic in the qualifying rounds.

The Farney men do not want their reward in the next life: they want silverware. Meath deserve praise for hanging in there and making it to the last four. Mayo bowed out knowing a last-four place was there for them.

After everything, not much had changed except that Kerry added to their illustrious record. Afterwards, it was confirmed Darragh Ó Sé would probably retire this winter. But no one really believes that anymore. Ó Sé will probably be playing in 10 years.

In the quiet season, then, Kerry can rest easy knowing the other contenders have a lot of work to do through the winter. In a way, this season underlined the old rule.

Unless a team steps up to the mark and plays outstandingly, Kerry will win the All-Ireland.

The know-how is part of their DNA by now.