THE SUSPICION is Cork and Kerry have some type of tourism pact in operation. For the fifth time in their last six meetings in Killarney, the sides drew. A large Cork following spent money foolishly about the town. The great caravan moves back to Cork next Sunday for the replay. The deciding of the All-Ireland can wait till August. It’s their world – we just live in it.

With just over 10 minutes left yesterday it looked as if Cork were about to pull away for an oddly decisive victory. They were four points clear and picking up the breaks like bankers picking up bonuses.

Kerry are Kerry though. The gentlemen who constitute that old firm are seldom at rest. Tomás Ó Sé brought affairs to order with his second point of the day. Prompting an intercession from Colm Cooper. Two points in it.

BJ Keane, the grandson of the great John Dowling, came in. Cork had two good goal chances but Kerry survived them. Keane and fellow sub Anthony Maher took points as legs got weary.

Cork went to the other end. Colm O’Neill, yet another sub, scored and leaped into the air. The final nail surely?

Well no.

Cooper was fouled again. He took the free from his hands from a difficult angle out on the right. He knows every blade of grass in this place though, the soughing and eddying of each breath of wind. It never struck anybody that he could miss. He didn’t.

The crowd were a little bemused. It wasn’t a classic but it was easy enough on the eye and the sun was balmy enough on the back for another half hour of football to have been acceptable.

No extra-time was forthcoming. Chapter Two next week.

Who will take away the most confidence is anybody’s guess. Both sides learned a little and lost a little. There were times when Cork swarmed the middle third but were ponderous about taking advantage. There were moments when Kerry looked as if they would cut Cork open and times when they did. Not often enough, though.

Games between these two sides are never exactly impromptu exchanges of wit. The results are ground out like chess games. A move here. A move there. Incremental advantage. Retreat.

Paudie Kissane scored three huge points for Cork yesterday. Huge in terms of when he scored them and the way he scored them.

Paul Galvin came into the action for the last 15 minutes and it was as if the sheriff was back. No more sallies by Cork half backs, an increased work-rate from the Kerry half-forward line in terms of picking up breaking ball. Galvin looking nothing like a man with tonsillitis and a dodgy ankle and he drove in for every loose ball in the same locality as himself.

Tomás Ó Sé didn’t labour in anonymity on the left side of the field but he looked like Tomás when he came back to the right. Yet, as Jack O’Connor said, Killian Young had done well on Paddy Kelly last September. Chess. Nothing crazy. Nothing unplanned.

“Look,” said Cork manager Conor Counihan afterwards, “it could have gone away from us too, so in that respect we are happy enough, coming down here in our first championship game of the season. I think Kerry will be a bit disappointed too with some of the chances they let go. So it will do both teams good going forward in the championship.”

Jack O’Connor of Kerry mirrored his rival’s words.

“We’re happy enough to be able to get a draw but disappointed the game didn’t go on another couple of minutes. I thought there was that left in it, in fairness. But we learned and we’ll pick it up again next week.”

And that was it, the silence which draws induce broken only by the whirring of two managers’ brains.