Southern boys beaten on points by flinty Brolly

TV VIEW:MAYBE IT was the sight of rare sunshine but there were undeniable echoes of the summer right through yesterday's All-Ireland final - and a very special English summer occasion at that.

Because just as it always seemed as if Rafael Nadal was going to edge Roger Federer out of the Wimbledon final back in July there was also something inevitable about Tyrone getting the best of Kerry.

The parallels were all too clear. Kerry, the game's aristocrats, brought a typically elegant and stylish game to Croke Park as well as the finest pedigree the place knows. In comparison, Tyrone bring all the spitting utilitarian intensity to the job of winning that Nadal specialises in.

So when things got tight Kerry were always going to be in trouble. But just like Roger, the Kingdom took their time accepting that inevitability.

For once, the occasion actually justified the pre-match hype.

"The biggest day of the football year in the football championship," declared Michael Lyster. "The greatest football championship in the world," crowed the Vodafone ad.

In the midst of such rampant anticipation it felt finicky, almost traitorous, to ponder whether the word "championship" was actually justified.

For the first time in the seven years of the back-door system both finalists were qualifiers. Linguistics students in Cork and Down could justifiably have spent the afternoon spewing scorn on the GAA's championship system but we are, after all, talking about an organisation that is considering uprooting Galway and Antrim into Leinster.

This was a time to go with the flow. And the pre-match flow was remorselessly pro-Kerry.

"If you break the Tyrone team down a lot of them would not be regarded as great players. But the total is so much greater than the parts," opined Colm O'Rourke.

"I think it is time for Kerry to stand up and be counted - it grates on them that people say they can't beat Tyrone."

Alongside him, Dara Ó Cinnéide dismissed the Kerry team as a bunch of wussy inadequates who wouldn't get within 10 points of Tyrone.

Actually he didn't, but asking the former Kerry captain if he fancies Kerry to win is like asking a Kerryman if he likes Kerry.

Instead it was Joe Brolly who caught fire the way Seán Cavanagh caught hold of the match.

Lyster produced a Tyrone tee-shirt proclaiming "Super-Dooher", a sly little dig considering how the Tyrone captain was once dismissed by the Sunday Gamepanel.

"On Thursday night I met a barmaid in Tyrone who wanted to swap tee-shirts with me," Brolly jinked, wrong-footing an entire national television audience. "For a few moments I was on the verge of a midlife crisis."

For a while the question of uncertainty in the life of the most cocksure GAA pundit of all raised its head only to be slapped down again by his love affair with Tyrone football's more rugged charms.

Some rather long-winded pondering on Kerry's game plan by his colleagues was swatted away with: "Mike Tyson used to say all his opponents had a plan - until he hit them."

Brolly's logic was pure Nadal: remorseless repetition will always grind down brilliance, so long as the brilliant don't get too much of a start.

After 25 minutes Kerry's Brian Sheehan pointed a free that had Martin Carney gushing: "I love that style - that languid style."

That was enough for one viewer to scribble, "Tyrone win."

At half-time it looked like Brolly had done the same.

O'Rourke and Ó Cinnéide weren't for changing and neither was their colleague. Kerry might have been a point up but no way was that going to be enough.

"I'm not going to desert Kerry but they will have to dig it out, which isn't their style," said O'Rourke stubbornly.

Brolly's response was full of certitude: "Tyrone are a second-half team. They hold you in the first half. Kerry ought to win this unless they're dumb on the sideline but Tyrone will wear them down."

Sure enough after 22 seconds Tyrone got their goal.

"Tyrone are masters of holding on to a lead. They will love this situation," said Carney, catching up quickly. Ger Canning's progress was more stately.

"With 15 minutes to go you wouldn't know who is going to win," he ventured, just as O'Sullivan's goalbound shot was stopped and Sheehan sent the 45 wide. There might have been only a point between them at the time but Tyrone are usually Nadal-like when it comes to keeping that vital point ahead.

Brolly greeted vindication with typical understatement. "Youse should start listening to me more often," he beamed.

O'Rourke sniffed and sucked it up. "When it came to the business end Tyrone were the better team," he said. "Most finals are won in that period while in some of Kerry's finals they were out of sight by that stage."

And so Tyrone's bearded Rafas strode back with Sam while the rest of us finished Gaeldom's finest day listening to Seán Boylan spouting Kipling during the ads. How terribly English is that?