Kerry 1-24, Dublin 1-7 DUBLIN FOOTBALL’S modern status as some sort of anti-Cassandra, its promise forever false but always believed, was copper-fastened in Croke Park yesterday with a mind-boggling humiliation at the hands of the experts in the field, Kerry.

In the space of a few seconds the GAA All-Ireland football quarter-final sank from the balmy contemplation of a first championship win over their great rivals in 32 years to the suffocating depths of a 17-point defeat. Neatly, what began as an attempt to revisit 1977 ended up as a reliving of 1978, when Kerry administered a roasting of the same intensity, 5-11 to 0-9.

Neither is the time-frame hyperbole. Within fewer than 40 seconds, Colm Cooper – he of the supposedly irreparably-broken form – had glided on to the end of a move of ominous urgency, finished by link work between Darran O’Sullivan and Mike McCarthy, to swivel on to his left and pocket the goal that triggered a flight of confidence normally associated with the financial markets.

Three points, even conceded in the opening minute, shouldn’t be a crippling debt but all the familiar demons appeared to re-emerge in Dublin’s collective head. From then on, there was not a single suggestion, nor even an isolated passage of play, to hint that the Leinster champions were going to confound their reputation for having all the composure of a blancmange in a microwave.

Who can say where this leaves Kerry? Their mastery was so complete and so unchallenged it’s hard to be definitive but the basic facts are inescapable. Jack O’Connor’s team exhibited their great skills as footballers and more importantly, the desire that great teams can summon when threatened.

For weeks the football world has been contemplating Kerry in apparent free-fall, huffing past teams they would normally never even have to play and when put to the test by their increasingly powerful neighbours Cork, being manifestly unable to cope.

Furthermore, one of their most influential players, Kieran Donaghy, has been out with injury.

Dublin’s favouritism with bookies, public and pundits was therefore based on misgivings about Kerry as much as unshakeable confidence in the perennially-volatile Leinster side.

But in this decade of the qualifiers the Kerry season has been about August. That’s when the second chances run out and when everything is played for keeps. Yesterday was testament to that core reality.

The big names on Jack O’Connor’s team, some frustrated by loss of form and distracted from the tight focus required for championship football, delivered August football.

Cooper, whose scoring statistics have been threadbare all season, returned to abundance. His tally of 1-7 equalled Dublin’s total. The goal was so adroitly taken it was bound to feed his confidence and spell trouble for Paddy Andrews, who toiled honestly in the slipstream.

Declan O’Sullivan received the man-of-the-match award from RTÉ after a display recalling his best form, constantly available and probing for weaknesses, both at centre forward and full forward, and finding plenty.

Dublin’s anticipated edge at centrefield joined all of the other vanities on the bonfire, as the old warhorse Darragh Ó Sé – brought ashore after an hour to a thunderous ovation – and Séamus Scanlon took an iron grip and the half-lines won virtually every break. What ball Dublin managed to get hands on was knocked from their possession and gobbled up.

Ciarán Whelan, the constantly rewarding Plan B of the season, ended up having to take the field before a quarter of an hour had passed and although he raised a great harroo by catching his very first kick-out and although he battled earnestly throughout, it made virtually no difference.

Kerry’s real problem area was supposed to be the defence. Tommy Griffin was a makeshift full back and quality players such as former player-of-the-year Marc Ó Sé were lacking form. Yet again the old cliché about form being temporary and class permanent could have been coined for what happened.

The Ó Sés showed the range of their football abilities – Tomás getting up for two points in the first half and Marc composed and imperturbable all of the time. Out of nowhere Tom O’Sullivan had his best match in an age, his pace and dextrous attentions turning Bernard Brogan’s previously golden season into dust and he had the luxury of racing down the right wing to kick a point.

Mike McCarthy, back just weeks from a two-year retirement, was magnificent at wing back, mopping up ball without fuss, making intelligently judged contributions to the attack, as for the goal, and almost nonchalantly fisting a crossed ball from Whelan out of the path of Barry Cahill in the 21st minute.

As Kerry effortlessly kicked points to stretch their lead from ominous to daunting to un-bridgeable, Dublin could hardly make a single attack stick. Three first-half points were the sum of the resistance offered although to be strictly fair, both Diarmuid Connolly and Alan Brogan hit the woodwork with attempts at goal that held out the promise of respectability rather than salvation.

If reports of Kerry’s deserted form proved inaccurate, for Dublin the reverse happened. Jason Sherlock was another whose fine form echoed mockingly in the overall devastation but his removal in the 23rd minute seemed precipitous given that so little ball had gone in and considering the scale of the problems farther out the field.

Along the same path to the sideline trod two other players to have come glowing out of the Leinster campaign, David Henry at corner back and Bryan Cullen, whose tour de force as a replacement in the provincial final had earned him a recall.

Alan Brogan darted about but his scampering industry needs a more fully-functioning context than yesterday’s wreckage and he was never going single-handedly to turn the match.

In boxing the match wouldn’t have reached half-time by which stage Kerry led 1-14 to 0-3: all the more impressive for the absence of Donaghy, without whom in Croke Park for the first time in four years, the team adapted to a faster, handling game in which captain Darran O’Sullivan shone, kicking three points from play and running Henry ragged.

The one Dublin player who could be said to have made a difference was Stephen Cluxton, who made splendid saves from Declan O’Sullivan after a one-two with Cooper and Paul O’Connor, who had turned him but saw his shot blocked and then tidied away by Denis Bastick.

The second half was tepid stuff. Kerry picked away and took their points much as they pleased whereas Dublin missed many of the considerably fewer chances they created. One that didn’t get away was Conal Keaney’s 57th-minute goal but all that did was cut the margin from a humiliating 16, 0-6 to 1-19, to a humiliating 13.

Tadhg Kennelly had been brought in for Tommy Walsh early in the match and looked the part with two late points on his first senior championship appearance in Croke Park. He’ll be pushing for a recall and Donaghy may well be ready.

Suddenly the team that was supposedly clapped out from contesting five All-Ireland finals on the spin is one match away from a sixth.