Business as usual, but with a twist. Kerry annexed their 35th All-Ireland title yesterday in a style that justified the 10-point winning margin, but in circumstances that yielded both novelty and satisfaction.
Playing their neighbours and old rivals Cork for the first time in an All-Ireland final, in a match that wasn't pretty but that never degenerated into the Balkan blood feud of attrition that some had predicted, Kerry worked hard and produced sufficient moments of trademark genius to justify their standing in the game.
They scored three odd goals on their way to continuing their recent tradition of handsome wins over their neighbours in big games in Croke Park. Colm "Gooch" Cooper rose high among bigger and heavier men to fist to the net midway through the first half, while Kieran Donaghy, rescued via a TV reality show from a career in basketball, had the odd experience of scoring two second-half goals into an empty Cork net. His goals ended the game as a contest.
"The first half was tight enough," said Kerry's iconic midfielder Darragh Ó Sé afterwards, of the game that brought him his fifth All-Ireland medal. "The couple of goals in the second half broke the back of it. We upped the ante a small bit in the second half and that did it. "
The game was full of the small significances that only a local derby clash could produce. Kerry were looking to become the first side to retain the title since Cork had done so back in 1990. Then, as now, Cork were managed by Billy Morgan, whose life's work in Cork football has been a constant tilting at the windmills of Kerry's excellence.
Declan O'Sullivan, Kerry's young captain, lifted the Sam Maguire trophy for the second September in succession and the words of his acceptance speech had scarcely finished reverberating around Croke Park before players in the Kerry dressingroom were talking about next year and the possibility of three-in-a-row, the sort of achievement that is the minimum deposit on a claim to greatness in the kingdom of football.