TOM HUMPHRIESwas in the Kildare dressingroom after the 1998 victory to hear the excited reaction to qualifying for the All-Ireland decider

THE BEST of times and the strangest of times. Can this be Kildare? The lilies who always wilt? Without their best player they went waltzing on water. They salted our words and made us eat them. It was the day they went and won one for Nuxer (Niall Buckley). And for Micko.

Some strange kind of wonderful. In Dublin there is a school of opinion which suggests Mick O’Dwyer won eight lucky All-Irelands with Kerry. As punishment for such bad thoughts he has moved in next door and turned the local vaudeville act into a fine football team. Forgive us Moses, we know not what we do.

In the Kildare dressingroom his shock of grey hair is scarcely visible above the flock of journalists who surround him. This latest miracle is perhaps his greatest yet. You want to know the secrets of his trade. How does he part the waters? He wants to tell you that he never saw a football game he didn’t like.

“We played good football today,” he said in that familiar hoarse rasp, “and Kerry also played marvellous football today. I think it was because of the way that Kerry played, they carried the ball and played the type of football that Kerry always play and that’s what made that such a great spectacle today.”

He has performed some wonderful alchemy with Kildare. By their own admission, players in Kildare reached a point where they thought they mightn’t get past a Leinster first round again.

This summer they have beaten the All-Ireland champions of 1995 (Dublin), 1996 (Meath) and 1997 (Kerry) to reach their first final in 53 years. An incredible story. O’Dwyer’s submersion in the process was such that the detail of the game yesterday was blurred.

“I wouldn’t know too much. When you are involved you don’t know, but I was quite pleased with the way it was going. I was a little worried when they got the goal. We got some great points after and we settled in. Every fella played 100 per cent.”

Mixed feelings? The question is inevitable. Unavoidable too, unless you are as nimble in these matters as Mick O’Dwyer.

“To be honest, it would be as good as any that I have achieved. All wins in championships are special, this one was special.”

Glen Ryan is the leader of a team of players who have no other success to differentiate this year’s streak from. “Unbelievable,” he says. “We are going to knuckle down now and try and finish the job. Poor Niall Buckley had to miss out today. Best player we’ve had over the last number of years. We all said we’d dig deep for Nuxer (Buckley) because it would be terrible if he was to miss out on a stage like this.”

Over the past half decade no player has defied the gravity field which kept Kildare sullenly earthbound quite as sweetly as Buckley has. Losing him on Saturday evening was a trauma which could have furnished a ready-made excuse for the team’s subconscious. “It was an unbelievable blow,” said Ryan, “but Nuxer said it’s not about him or any one man. It’s about the panel. He was an inspiration to us, but he’ll have to fight for his place the next day. We’re delighted for him, Micko and Karl (O’Dwyer).”

Ryan noted he’d been around a long time but he knew plenty of people who had been around five times longer than he had. All eyes switched to Davy Dalton. He used mark Larry Stanley in practice they say. “You know I thought we’d have been put off by missing Nuxer,” said Dalton , “after two years ago and losing to Laois out here I never thought this would happen. All the hard work is worth it now. We are used to tight matches by now. We just say ‘here we go, a battle on our hands’. Everything is rosy in the camp.”

Anthony Rainbow, whose career in the white jersey has encompassed everything from bitter failure to catching hypothermia in Ballinascreen, was another soaking in the ambience of the promised land. “It feels great. It will hit me during the week. All the fans out there, I have never experienced anything like it. We’ve built for this. We did a lot of work in the Curragh and in Clane. Worked on weights in the winter. We made ourselves stronger physically and mentally.”

Then there is Karl O’Dwyer. When Kildare were beaten by Laois that time it could hardly have cost him a second thought. Happenstance has changed the map of his life, however. Here he is, a Kerryman on the brink of his first All-Ireland final playing in a team managed by the greatest Kerryman. “When himself finished in 1994 I honestly thought he’d never go back. He went back in 1996 and they were unlucky in 1997. I got a job in Kildare and if I was going to get my chance it was up to myself. That’s what he said. Here I am.”

Here too is Niall Buckley. His nickname, Nuxer, tattooed on to his right forearm, his right thigh heavily bandaged, a spectator on his team’s greatest day.

“It’s unreal,” he says, “but I’d say I’d be 99.9 per cent certain for the final. It went at about six o’clock yesterday evening, kicking around. Up until last evening I was 99 per cent fit. We had a meeting, a kickaround. It tore on one of the balls I was kicking. I went from that to not being able to run at all.

“It was a heroic performance, what they did. Absolutely brilliant. It was the first time I’ve sat and watched in such a big game. You feel so helpless, especially when you’ve done all the work they’ve done. We are a very close unit. The majority have been around seven or eight years. We’d all die for each other. They did that little bit extra. They were heroic. I could have come on for 10 minutes but it probably would have gone from bad to worse.”

Buckley has been there for the harrowing defeats and the utter humiliations. He will return to the flourbag white on the 27th of September at the heart of a team which is changing the broad public perception or itself.

“My first year was 1992 – defeat against Dublin in the Leinster final – and then (we) lost three years in the first round. Only last year, with the three games against Meath, we got some respect.

“Until then people’s idea of Kildare football was that we were soft and windy, when it came to the crunch we’d lie down. We have shown when it comes to the crunch we don’t lie down.”