The difference between Kerry and Mayo? Well 13 points is the width of the gap between fact and faith. Kerry deliver titles. Mayo peddle illusions. Kerry know. Mayo believe. Kerry do.
Mayo purport.
Question: What's the difference between a palace and a castle in the air?
Answer: Thirteen points.
Knowledge and belief. Kerry won their 34th All-Ireland yesterday making a procession out of a game which had billed itself as an epic in the making. They were 10 points up in just about as many minutes after the throw-in. During that time Mayo's failure to tend to so many basic duties made us curse ourselves for being suckers to expectation yet again.
Kerry were favourites of course. History and tradition demands that, yet in a year's time a trawl through our back pages will make for curious reading. Kerry were apparently riven by Balkan like civil wars and blood feuds from early summer till the time the national anthem was played yesterday.
Mayo, serial hoaxers at this level, were the real thing this time. They had won an epic semi-final, a game which some insisted on calling the greatest game of all time, and they were being steered by wise and gnarled captains. Surely they would be heading back across the Shannon with good references and commendations. Possibly with silverware too.
Instead we have the familiar ruins and debris to sift through. Mayo's fifth All-Ireland defeat in less than 20 years and easily the most crushing. This one hurt more because everything was perfect beforehand. Mayo hadn't slunk into an All-Ireland final via some dire semi-final encounter with a godhelpus county, they had been building momentum, they had been through rites of passage, they had whatever it would take.
Question: If offered three first-half goals in an All-Ireland final against Kerry, would you take it?
Answer: Well not if you knew Kerry were going to score 3-8.
Oh, Kerry destroyed them. Mike Frank Russell sent up a flare after a minute of play, one of those lovely hoisted points which could be described as classic Mike Frank. Under the light of that score Kerrymen pored into Mayo's turf. Mike Frank popped a free then Kerry played pitty patty with the ball right through the Mayo defence without suffering a hit before Declan O'Sullivan put the ball in the net.
We were still considering the implications of this development when the footballer of the year (in our not very prestigious book) Kieran Donaghy, ripped a ball down from the sky and thundered it to the Mayo net. A beautiful and brilliant goal, conceded all 82,289 customers.
Somewhat lucky said the author Mr Donaghy, aka Star.
"My own was fortunate enough in that I landed sort of facing the goal and he (the full back) was behind me. I just sort of hit it."
With luck like that who needs genius? Further discussion of the narrative of the action is futile.
Kerry were 10 points up after 12 minutes and even Mayo's burgeoning reputation as escapologists didn't sway us from the view that they were dead on the slab. They would concede one more goal before half-time and, incredibly score three themselves while being whipped, but it looked always as if they were not waving but drowning.
Question: What consolations are there?
Answer: None.
Perhaps the lowest points came in the face of Kerry's relentless insistence on doing the right thing.
Séamus Moynihan burst through the Mayo defence on 28 minutes and with the scoring of a championship goal easily within his compass opted to simply fist the ball over the bar. The score gave Kerry a 12-point first-half lead, so why not?
That could have been the lowest point. Or maybe it came with learning that Kerry were pleased that Mayo had filched two goals late in the first half.
Question: When is a six-point lead at half-time in an All-Ireland final not a good thing?
Answer: When you've just had a 12-point lead? Wrong.
"It was a good thing Mayo got a couple of goals before half-time. If we'd gone in 12 points ahead we would have had nothing to focus on. The goals kept us on our toes. We said we'd go out and attack the lead."
So Kerry came out for the second half and attacked their lead. Mayo, who must have told themselves again and again during the interval that they had been further behind later in the game against Dublin last month, came out and didn't score from play in the second half.
Question: Name the former All Star who scored two All-Ireland final goals but got taken off 12 minutes after the second?
Answer: Kevin O'Neill of Mayo.
One of those days. Our fascination is with the fate of Mayo rather than the excellence of Kerry.
Over and again in the Kerry dressingroom reporters asked players what they would say to Mayo.
Over and again players said nice things and encouraging things. Kieran Donaghy said he would tell his marker David Brady that he was inspirational, that he could hold his head high. Tommy Griffin expressed his sympathy, others expressed their bafflement.
Jack O'Connor, dealer in realities, separated romance from pain. Jack said afterwards that the one year Kerry had been waiting since losing last year's final had hurt a lot more than the 55 years which Mayo had been waiting. He believed that and Kerry believed that. There's a hunger in the county which separates Kerry from everyone else. It is hunger born of culture and entitlement.
"Mayo might have played their final a few weeks ago," said Jack. "They looked a bit flat today. It's all about timing." Maybe it is. Or maybe it's all about things which the men of Kerry understand fully but we scarcely know to exist.
Thirty four All-Irelands and this morning they'll get up and feel a slight gnawing pain that won't be eased till number 35 is delivered.