GAELIC GAMES: Who knows what goes on in the Tyrone dressingroom at half-time on these big occasions? Does Peter Canavan retire to a darkened room with a sleeping cap and eyeshades and ask to be given a call with a quarter of an hour or so to go?
Does he merely announce that as a verified deity there is no way he should have to play 70 minutes like the mere mortals? Is it a union issue? When the Tyrone team are going back out to face the tower of noise that is Croke Park do they wave cheery farewells to Canavan or ask him to text their families while he's sitting around?
However, Tyrone have arrived at this point where they take Peter Canavan off at half-time in All-Ireland finals and then put him back on again after a shave and a pedicure. It works.
Yesterday when the going got tough Canavan duly resurrected himself. He watched impassively as Tomás Ó Sé scored a goal against the run of play at one end and then produced an astonishing point about 100 seconds later to remind Kerry that the world has changed. This was a win which copperfastens the new era in Gaelic football. It was an outcome too which will have ramifications beyond those which All-Ireland finals normally provide.
Kerry will take defeat hard. After being beaten by Armagh in 2002 and Tyrone a year later they reassessed their own style of play and came back and won an All-Ireland without meeting either of those sides. Yesterday was to bring validation for a county who have made a speciality down the decades of issuing retribution. No validation or retribution came.
For Tyrone, the second title in three years places Mickey Harte right into the pantheon of great managers. His achievements not just in winning two All-Irelands but in creating a new style and a new benchmark for sides are breathtaking. When it comes to the art of winning big games Tyrone have rewritten the book and Canavan, whose boot set them free against Armagh in the semi-final, was instrumental once again in leading his flock to the Promised Land.
It was Tyrone's 10th game of the championship and none of them were easy. Mickey Harte was quick afterwards to pick up on any inference that playing 10 games might have been an advantage to his side.
"Do you profit from the extra games? Well after Meath's long run in 1991 (nine games) it was said that it cost them in the end. There's no exact science here. For us it worked. It took a lot of things to make it work. Credit must go to Fergal McCann for that. The emphasis all year has been on freshness. We didn't feel tired. We trained two nights a week and tried to stay as fresh as possible. That's all."
Kerry might perhaps reflect that whatever about Tyrone getting plenty of football through the summer they themselves lacked sufficient experience at the furnace. Jack O'Connor spoke afterwards about trying to replicate intensity in training but he conceded that playing with training bibs on windy pitches isn't the same thing. When the game was at its most intense yesterday was when Kerry looked most vulnerable.
Oddly, in trying to match the Northern style of play Kerry have ended up with too much perspiration and not enough inspiration in attack. Colm Cooper was remarkable again yesterday, converting a diet of 50-50 balls into five points and a vital goal assist. Elsewhere, however, Kerry had no real cutting blade.
Mike Frank Russell has been in decline. The half-forward line are coalminers rather than sculptors. Kerry took too long to get the ball inside the Tyrone 21-yard line and when they did they had no real options apart from the Gooch.
The introduction of the speedy Darren O'Sullivan, a minor last year, gave a hint that the future may not be all dark in Kerry. Still just 18, O'Sullivan got too little time to burn the Tyrone defence with his runs and to draw frees. He will be part of the blueprint unfolding already in Jack O'Connor's head.
For Tyrone, who knows what the future holds? Mickey Harte was inclined to think sufficient unto the day was the win thereof.
"It's about new teams on the block. Moving up. Taking on the Kerrys of this world. They have 33 All-Irelands. We have two. There's nothing easy about this. We have to savour the moment. We won't be here forever. We know that. We'll pass and somebody else will come. We have to enjoy it."
Peter Canavan will savour it. What was apparently his last competitive game in a Tyrone jersey brought all sorts of satisfactions. He became the second Tyrone man and indeed the second man from his parish (Paudge Quinn was the other in 1986) to score a goal in an All-Ireland final. The goal was set up by a former pupil of his, Owen Mulligan.
And having kicked the free which brought Tyrone to Croke Park he kicked the extraordinary point which killed Kerry's hopes yesterday. All that and just as the final whistle went (if indeed it did sound in the chaotic final seconds) he was to be found coming out the better of an intensely physical challenge on his successor as the nations pre-eminent forward, Colm Cooper.
If Canavan, even in his cameo roles, gets all the best lines these days the thrust of the narrative is carried by others. The legendarily hard-working half-forward line did its usual ferrying and toting yesterday and Brian McGuigan in particular was exceptional.
There were times when despite the intensity and the pace of the game Tyrone actually looked comfortable and secure in their self-belief. Brian Dooher's experience was a little different though. "Hah," he said, "maybe youse were at a different game. It wasn't too comfortable-looking out there with Kerry coming on you. We got a few breaks and picked up a few scores. We'd been there with Armagh. They tested us. Every 10 minutes of a game is equally important. If you haven't done enough in the first 10 you won't make it up in the last." Tyrone have made it their trademark this year to be as fresh in the last 10 minutes as in the first 10, to be better in the 10th game of summer than they were in the first. They rest this morning with 31 counties gazing up at them in awe and wondering if their achievements, their intensity and their story can ever quite be matched.
