The Kerry dressingroom is all steam and cool words. Men showering, spraying freshness back onto themselves and standing around surveying what has just happened. Not much room for dizziness and high fives when you have 68 Munster titles won.

Páidí Ó Sé is slipping into a sports jacket and looking more slender and more content than you've seen him in many a year. His mood matches that of his players. One of interested contemplation. The match just gone has hardly been beautiful or fascinating. Just a job of work.

"They started very well, Limerick," he muses. "We had to change midfield. No disrespect to Eoin or Séamus and to Declan but just kicking the ball out to a different midfield had a bearing. It was a lift for us after they missed the penalty. We played our best football after that. Eoin caught a great ball behind John Galvin, that set us up."

This had been a low-key Munster final. After 20 minutes when Limerick had huffed and puffed themselves to a standstill it became clear enough that Kerry had the winning of it. Everything else was detail. Páidí put his finger on the difference.

"Limerick did very well but a bit of experience did us no harm. We've been around the block a few times and when things went difficult we were able to steady up and look at things and weather the storm. I felt they didn't have the same resilience. Not yet. That's down to experience."

Once they had a toehold little could disturb Kerry's progress. The dismissal of Séamus Scanlon was absorbed easily enough.

"We were playing okay when Séamus went off. Dara kicked a point just afterwards. That was a crucial score. Declan O'Sullivan came out to the 40 and he worked himself into the ground."

Happy? "Of course - we won a Munster final. The first as a manager that I have won on Kerry ground. All of the others we have won outside of Kerry. So it's special today to win in Killarney."

Colm Gooch Cooper expressed the same sentiment: "It was special being a Killarney man, living two minutes down the road. It's a dream come true in that sense but we're just looking at a quarter-final now. Get through the next round. Get back to Croke Park, that's where the tough stuff starts."

And what about being taken off? For one of last year's stars it was a measure of the quality sitting on the bench behind him.

"Sometimes it being your first year is an advantage. The second year you are a marked man and there's not much you can do about it. People know you. The motivation is to look at our dugout and all the forwards in there. That's enough to keep you going."

At the other end of the field and the spectrum in terms of experience stands Séamus Moynihan, the heart and the brain of this Kerry team. He placed the afternoon in perspective.

"Nice to win back Munster first and foremost. We really focused on Limerick since the Tipp game. Limerick threw an awful lot at us in the first 15, 20 minutes. It was great to survive that. It could have been five or six points down but we weren't and then I think we got a goal and five points without reply. That won the game really. To be up that amount at half-time, playing well. It was good to be in that position."

In those early passages Limerick seemed to be battering themselves off a wall. Moynihan was more modest about the stone qualities of his compadres in defence.

"I don't know if it was good defending or Limerick just put it wide. We knew the calibre of free-taker they had - our defenders got in close and didn't do silly things. We gave no easy frees to Muiris (Gavin). Against Cork I don't know, he got nine, 10, 11 points."

And Darragh Ó Sé's absence? It was felt that if anything would unhinge Kerry it was the loss of their midfield monument. They survived though and learned a little along the way.

"It was like losing Michael Jordan in basketball terms" said Moynihan generously. "He has been one of the best midfielders in the last ten years and losing a player like that is always a big blow. But Eoin Brosnan stood up and gave an account of himself out there today. That's what it takes. It was good to see. There'll be days when Darragh has a bad day. The lads worked very well. They picked up the breaks. That's what wins games. "

Liam Kerins stood in the summer sun and considered what might have been. His side had shown little glimpses of what they were capable of and the 70 minutes were strewn with enough errors and near misses to become the foundation for hope on another day.

"I think the game was lost in the first 20 minutes. We were all over them in the first 20 minutes and with a team like Kerry you have to put them away then. Twenty minutes of total dominance and we didn't get the scores. We missed a penalty and then when our second penalty came both our penalty takers were off the field. Our regular man, Michael, was off and Damien was injured. That was the kind of day it was. It just didn't go for us. They won the game, they showed their class, they won with less possession, that's how good teams do it.

" I suppose we just weren't good enough. If you are good enough you take your chances and that's it, the reality.

"I thought the lads showed great heart and commitment. We brought the game to them right to the end."

And as a reward they got Armagh in the qualifying draw. Sometimes when your luck is out it's best to stay in bed.