GAELIC GAMES/ ALL- IRELAND SFC FINAL: IN KERRY all nightmares must be lived in red and white, with the pale, thin face of Mickey Harte presiding impassively over the nocturnal mayhem.

A three-in-a-row that seemed inevitable for much of the summer just evaporated yesterday as Tyrone, full of the confidence and game that have made them famous, seized their third All-Ireland of the decade.

Somewhere in Kerry there is a self-help therapy group about to get a new member. Páidí Ó Sé will talk this week about how Tyrone saw him off as manager, about how defeat in 2003 was just too much even for a man who had eight All-Irelands as a player.

Jack O'Connor will speak next of how the unavenged defeat in 2005 diminished his legacy. And then a gaunt man in the corner will begin his piece: "My name is Pat and I too . . ."

This was Tyrone's day but the nature of their achievement, in front of a crowd of 82,186, is such we can only do it justice by eulogising Kerry first. This Kerry side, appearing in their fifth successive All-Ireland final, have at times in the past couple of years looked as if they had discovered a way to win big games on autopilot.

When the chips were down, great towering stacks of chips that would frighten ordinary mortals, Kerry were the coolest and most collected players at the table.

And it was this solidity, this self-belief, these traditions that Tyrone undid yet again yesterday.

Tyrone, like Down before them in the 1960s, just seem to be too far removed geographically and culturally to know Kerry are supposed to spook them. They come out to play, impose themselves on the green-and-gold in a manner Kerry find to be uppity and disrespectful, and it works.

One of the first visible signs of Tyrone's difference yesterday was when the television screens flashed a picture of a frenzied and bearded Tyrone defender roaring into the ear of young Tommy Walsh.

When Pat Spillane christened Tyrone's style of play "puke football" a few years ago one suspects that in Tyrone they were far less distressed than they let on to be.

Inasmuch as they think about or care about what Kerry people think of their style of play, Tyrone are happy enough just to be under their skin. Whatever works is the style of football everyone wants to imitate.

Tyrone have been much copied, even to an extent by Kerry, but they haven't gone away.

Back in 1955 when Kerry put away a Dublin team in a famous All-Ireland final the victory of traditional virtues over Dublin's peskily scientific approach was heralded on the front page of the Kerryman as a triumph for catch-and-kick. Yesterday, being the first meeting of the teams since the true coming of Kieran Donaghy, was scheduled to be another triumph of catch-and-kick over the mutations inflicted on the game by interlopers. In the end Kerry got plenty of kick but very little catch.

"Aye," said Mickey Harte of the late change that saw Ciarán Gourley withdrawn from the Tyrone full-back line. "Joe McMahon is a man for any day. He is big and he is physical. He would map that physical presence in there for us. Kerry's long-ball threat never really caused us the havoc they might have intended."

And that was that. Very little stuck in the Kerry full-forward line, a consequence of poor delivery and rigorous defending. After that Tyrone just had to do what they do best: break at quicksilver speed and take the scores.

In that respect their tactics continued to work perfectly.

Harte was criticised earlier this year for withdrawing Seán Cavanagh from midfield. Without him it was felt Tyrone could never dig up enough ball in the middle third to be viable.

Yesterday they just flooded the middle third with bodies while Cavanagh demolished Kerry with five points from play.

And the immense loss to Kerry that was Paul Galvin was underlined in a strange sort of way by the performance of the prototype player in that position, Brian Dooher.

Once again Dooher was magnificent yesterday and, as his manager pointed out afterwards, the point he scored into the Hill 16 end from out on the right wing was among the greatest scores ever seen in an All-Ireland final.

The score came in the first half but its qualities of impertinence and tenacity underlined a key difference between the sides.

By then Kerry looked like a side being visited by a familiar and unwelcome ghost.

"All games are decided on small things," said Pat O'Shea afterwards. "We came out in the second half; we wanted to push on; we were a point up. They got the goal. That was always going to be the deciding score even though we came back and we got a point clear. They are a quality side. There is no issue whatsoever there. They are a good team. They have proven that.

"Our lads were going for three- in-a-row. We had a tough run. We thought that might help up but small things change games."

There were a million small things at work in Croke Park yesterday but they key things were ones Pat O'Shea could do nothing about. Tyrone disrespect Kerry about us much as Cork respect them. Tyrone don't flinch in expectation of retribution.

That's what makes this relationships fascinating and, with one year of this decade left, worth a final instalment.