Jack O'Connor's Column:Derry and Monaghan did not freeze in Croke Park; they lost for reasons of inexperience

We saw three matches in Croke Park over the weekend where the underdogs really put it up to the big boys. Only one of the Davids took down a Goliath - Limerick beat Waterford. In the other two games Derry and Monaghan scored moral victories but there's no roll of honour for moral victors.

Dublin and Kerry were vulnerable after long lay-offs. They'll have benefited hugely from coming through tough games. At this stage it is all about survival and becoming battle-hardened in Croke Park. Dublin and Kerry know that well.

Saturday was the wake-up call Dublin needed. They almost did the Devon Loch thing again. It's dangerous to start throwing on substitutes for the sake of it late in a game. It transmits a message to players on the field. The game is won! Coast to the finish, lads.

In basketball slang they call it garbage time. It's that period when subs get a run at the end of a game. Paddy Bradley nearly dumped Dublin during garbage time on Saturday.

A huge factor the Dubs have going for them though is Croke Park itself and that sea of blue. It takes ferocious mental strength for the opposition to ignore all that and concentrate on what they came to do.

There are so many factors to playing there even before you hit the pitch: the bus driving right in under the stands, the size of the dressingrooms, the number of Croke Park officials, the rumbling noise from above.

You can visit the place and check it out but Croke Park is a different world when it is full. It can inspire you or it can destroy you. You have to find the balance where you are stimulated without being overcome.

And when you cross the white lines the surface out there is big and the ground is firm. Croke Park is built for speed. The old trick of narrowing the sidelines when you have a fast team to play doesn't work there. It is a huge pitch and if you have pace and nerve in Croke Park you'll kill.

On a day when there is a little skid on the surface the forward needs to give just one shimmy and the back, all pumped up, is sitting on his backside.

It happened several times in the football games. The forward with a ball in his hand has all the aces. The firmness of the sod and the greasy top make it hard to turn.

You need nerve though. There is no hiding place. Some players thrive on it: Colm Cooper, Alan Brogan, Andrew O'Shaughnessy.

It even affects referees and you have to factor that in. They're human. They make bad decisions. Sometimes they'll make home-crowd decisions. Pumped players in Croke Park like to get in referees' faces. Teams get rattled for a minute or two.

The rule is simple: he isn't going to back down in front of 82,000 people because you surround him and put your face into his face. So when you run past him you might say, "Thought you were a bit hard on us there, ref," or shout at your own players to get on with it. It's about focus and conviction. Doing what you came to do.

Monaghan manager Séamus McEnaney alluded to it after the game on Sunday. You have to have been at that stage a couple of times before you learn how to win a game like that.

Séamus was right. In March of last year Kerry played Monaghan in Scotstown in a game Monaghan needed to get something out of to stay in the first division. The game had uncanny resemblances to last Sunday. We won two minutes into injury time with a point by Colm Cooper.

It was important because we'd been at the receiving end of a tight one against Tyrone in the 2005 All-Ireland. Even though Tyrone were the better team we'd looked back at the last few minutes and saw ways that we could have got something out of the final. We forced it a small bit near the end that day though.

Last Sunday there was a stage when it looked as if Kerry wouldn't get anything out of the game without scoring a late goal. But players took their points patiently. They have been in these big games before.

You have to learn to play away under pressure of time and space. Never panic. Never force it. Remember the old Meath mantra of never looking at the scoreboard or the clock. A lot of games can be won in the last two or three minutes.

On Saturday Derry forced it and went for those goals. Stephen Cluxton is very good in one-on-one situations. Tipping it over the bar would have been fine for Derry.

Experience strengthens conviction. Declan O'Sullivan made his goal for Kerry look so simple. He would have good memories of scoring in Croke Park and scoring into that goal. Some 24 hours previously, at the same end, Paddy Bradley took half a second too long over a chance he would score 99 times out of 100.

Derry didn't freeze. Neither did Monaghan. Having the composure to go the full distance and finish off your chances is the next step though. Both teams played some brilliant football but lost for reasons of inexperience.

The best way to beat Dublin in Croke Park is to keep the crowd out of the picture by getting a fast start and then prevent Dublin scoring goals. After that you need to concentrate for 70 minutes because Dublin do their damage in short, quick bursts.

Derry did the first two parts on Saturday but those bursts killed them. They led by five points to two after a quarter of an hour and then Dublin scored five points in the next seven minutes.

In the middle of the second half Dublin scored another four points in six minutes, with Paddy Bradley getting just one at the other end in between.

The decibel levels go up during those little blitzes and it takes more than football and physical fitness to survive them. It takes huge self-belief and conviction.

Derry will look back and see that they scored the last four points of the game and could have had a goal at the end. They will reflect that deep down though they came to Croke Park to give it a good rattle.

They will know this week that they should have set their sights higher and gone for the jugular.

That's the rubicon teams must cross in their own minds when they take on the Dubs in Croke Park.

Monaghan had a slightly different challenge the next day and again they didn't freeze. They were slow coming out for the game but when they hit the pitch they meant business. They tore into it with ferocious intensity and rattled Kerry for long periods.

A shower of rain early on helped Monaghan's backs. It was very hard for the Kerry full-forward line to win any clean ball. Monaghan were sharp to the breaks.

Kerry had another huge advantage in the quality of their forward subs. Kerry are better equipped than any other team in that department.

Croke Park is a big and tiring pitch. To be able to bring in top-quality forwards from the bench is a huge advantage. Those reinforcements will be needed against the Dubs the next day as the game will be played at breakneck speed.

At the weekend Kerry and Dublin used all the advantages they could muster to get through.

Dublin fed off the crowd for those blitz periods while Derry forced things when they had their chances.

On Sunday Kerry stuck to the game plan right till the end, never panicking or forcing it.

The history and romance of the past and the fact that those advantages will cancel each other out will make the semi-final in two weeks' time the game of the season.