Gaelic Games Championship 2007: Jack O'Connor's ColumnKerry did to Cork what the Northern boys did to Kerry a few years ago, and Cork couldn't handle it

Something that surprised me on Sunday was that Kerry appeared far more wired up than Cork beforehand. Cork walked out of the tunnel in an orderly and orchestrated fashion. I could see the sense of that but when you saw Kerry tearing out like men possessed I had to wonder! Even on the red carpet waiting to shake hands with the President it was the Kerry players who looked more keyed up.

Cork didn't look as if they believed deep down. Watching the teams line up was like watching the last group set off from the first tee in a Major tournament on a Sunday morning when Tiger Woods is in that group. You know Tiger will perform.

He won't beat himself. Straight away you are under pressure. That creates fear and fear spawns mistakes. Colm Gooch Cooper and Kieran Donaghy just waited to feed off those mistakes.

Gooch's goal was no accident. Sometimes a goalkeeper needs to come and take ball, forward, defender and all. Alan Quirke didn't. Gooch has scored that type of goal too often for it to be coincidence. He sensed the fear.

If that didn't kill the game stone dead, Donaghy's first goal certainly did. Ger Spillane sauntered across his goalmouth early in the second half with no urgency. He might have got away with that in the Meath semi-final. Not on Sunday. Donaghy smelled blood. It wasn't a token tackle as some forwards offer but a committed attempt at winning the ball. His reward was a tap-in to an empty net. There is an effective tackle in Gaelic football after all - the problem is that many players aren't committed enough to perfect it.

Tactically Pat O'Shea and his team got it exactly right. They crowded midfield, allowed very few clean catches and dominated through their specialist breaking-ball merchants on either side of midfield. Men like Aidan O'Mahony, Tomas Ó Sé, Declan O'Sullivan and Paul Galvin made hay in that area all day. When the game was still a contest Kerry won the midfield battle well anyway. The first-half stats for possession from kickouts was something like 14 to 7 in Kerry's favour. Darragh Ó Sé and Seamus Scanlon did whatever fielding that was getting done.

Kerry turned over Cork's possession regularly and completely frustrated Cork's running game. To have a chance Cork needed Michael Cussen close to goal under long balls. They persisted with the running game though and played into Kerry's hands.

Sticking a half-fit James Masters in a two-man full-forward line backfired. He didn't have the pace for the open spaces. Feeding off knockdowns from Cussen would have been his best chance to prosper. Through no fault of his own Masters struggled. He'd lost a little weight and strength. Of three kicks of his that I recall in the first half, two were garryowens and one was blocked down. A sure sign of a man off the pace. He should have been an impact sub. Daniel Goulding had done enough against Meath to start. On the other hand maybe Billy Morgan felt he needed to throw everything at Kerry early on.

Still. Pace wouldn't be Masters' strength and taking Cussen out and leaving so much space inside required Masters to be winning ball in a straight run-out, then turning and taking his man on. Not his game.

Cork came undone at the back too. Leaving Graham Canty on Donaghy would have been the better option. The way Gooch is playing meant that marking him was always just going to be a damage-limitation exercise.

Canty matches up better size-wise with Donaghy. He did very well on that big Australian Barry Hall a couple of years ago in the International Rules. Michael Shields struggled on Donaghy and actually gave away a penalty in the first half but the referee opted not to give it. Canty wasn't especially suited to marking the Gooch, in terms of mobility and centre of gravity. Even in the replay in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last year Gooch had an off-day in the shooting department but won a lot of ball off Canty.

There were times on Sunday when Kerry looked to be playing at a different pace to a Cork team who had slow lateral movement out the field, no penetration and slow delivery to the inside line. Against a committed, hard-tackling team that was a recipe for disaster.

Kerry have learned the value of tackling and work-rate from the Ulster teams of the last few years. Remember the second half of the 2002 final when Armagh lifted their intensity and their tackling to another level? The same with Tyrone in 2003 and '05. Kerry have reacted by putting huge emphasis on that area of the game while still retaining the more traditional elements of their own style - quick movement of the ball and long delivery to the full forward line.

The Northern boys made Kerry revise their thinking. Kerry teams now do a lot of ball work in tight and confined spaces. On Sunday Kerry were doing to Cork what was done to Kerry a few years ago, Cork couldn't handle it. They walked into tackles, failed to come out at pace, didn't support each other enough. Cork hoped to run through the Kerry defence. You can't. They are too strong and they hit too hard.

Kerry will be back to look for the three-in-a-row. Indeed many of us in Kerry will wonder if Kerry would have been celebrating four in a row this week if Donaghy had burst on to the scene a year earlier than he did.

I don't think there will be retirements. The idea of three-in-a-row will drive on players like Darragh and Tomás Ó Sé. You give an Ó Sé a challenge and he'll rise to it. That's the mentality they have. It suited Darragh to see all the talk about Nicholas Murphy these past few weeks. The more a man like Darragh, who is a legend of the game, has it put up to him the better you'll have to be to beat him. He is so driven Murphy would have needed to be a lot better than him to actually beat him.

Darragh has been there and done it consistently, he puts a fear factor into players. He has one more year in him. Two-in-a-row, three-in-a-row, four-in-arow, those are such a big thing down here that they would regret missing out on it.

Especially men with the tradition and background the Ó Sés have.

Kerry are in a strong position now. New young players develop quickly in a winning team. When you are winning you can learn without being under pressure. It is a comfortable place to be.

Cork on Sunday were in the same boat as the Limerick hurlers. Only a couple of their players had experienced the All-Ireland occasion before and teams in that situation have to waste so much time and energy planning for the occasion itself that they forget the more basic essentials of playing the game.

A first-time All-Ireland final team has to worry about all the things they need to ignore. It's like being told that on pain of death you are not to think of, say, an elephant. You can't but think about an elephant after that. On the other hand an experienced team just concentrates on the few things it has to remember.

Kerry and Kilkenny ruthlessly exploited their advantages this September. At this moment both are well ahead of the rest. They have set the standards in terms of preparation and motivation. Rather than complain about one-sided All-Irelands the others will have to raise their standards or these two will continue to dominate.