It washed across the pitch at Croke Park like surf. A tide of white-bedecked followers, celebrating Kildare's victory in yesterday's Bank of Ireland Leinster football final, flowed up against the Hogan stand as captain Glen Ryan gave one of the longest speeches heard in Europe since the fall of communism.

To be fair to Ryan, there was a lot to say and an ecstatic audience to treasure every word. For the first time in 42 years, the county will contest a senior All-Ireland semi-final. That appointment with Kerry, as resonant a pairing as history can contrive, is for another day.

Yesterday was a time for the here and now: how the county had bridged such a long gap, how the team had exorcised any lingering ghosts from their under-achieving past and how they had stared down the opposition on the very terrain favoured by Meath, with the game teetering on the brink.

Trailing by three points going into the last eight minutes, Meath found the dying kick that has so often rescued them in the past. Tommy Dowd, substitute Jody Devine and Ray Magee, with a free, pulled them level in the 69th minute and smart money was on the draw.

Within a minute, wing forward Dermot Earley, who had another useful outing, picking up possession around the middle and using it well, won the ball from Enda McManus and put Martin Lynch in possession in the right corner.

Lynch had spent the afternoon doing little more than devising extravagant responses to shoulder-charges but on this occasion he displayed vision and accuracy to set up Brian Murphy unmarked in front of goal and Murphy slotted the ball into the net.

Grace notes were provided by Willie McCreery and Eddie McCormack and the party got into full swing.

In one simple, emblematic moment the essence of Kildare's historic triumph was made clear. Outside Meath's dressing-room, Sean Boylan met his Kildare counterpart Mick O'Dwyer. Between them, they have won half the last 23 All-Irelands. As hands were shaken and any awkwardness cleared away by laughter, O'Dwyer said: "You have no idea what this means to us."

It presumably also means a lot to O'Dwyer personally. Ten years ago, he was nearing the end of the most successful spell ever enjoyed by a football manager. Eight All-Irelands in 12 years, to go with the four he won as a player, had made him a legend in Kerry, a county not easily impressed.

The only thing that could rankle was the tendency for the excellence of his players to deflect kudos from his role as a manager. During his two terms with Kildare he has brought the team from being also-rans to Leinster champions in painful increments.

No one will look at his present crop of players - skilful, athletic and whole-hearted as they are - and claim that the stamp of greatness was on them, regardless of O'Dwyer's influence. After the match he volunteered the well-travelled rumours of lavish remuneration in Kildare and said that money could never buy the feeling of satisfaction.

That satisfaction is enhanced by the presence of his son Karl, who moved from Kerry to Kildare at the beginning of the year to take up a teaching post in Rathangan, at full forward. O'Dwyer was prickly on the subject of Kildare having imported players.

Initially he replied "no comment" before returning to the subject himself to point out that his son, Brian Lacey (from Tipperary) and Brian Murphy (from Cork) all lived and worked in Kildare.

All three had an impact. Lacey maintained the good form he has displayed all summer and subdued Tommy Dowd for most of the match.

Dwyer played deep - excessively so at times, leading to the unusual sight of Meath's full back Darren Fay up kicking a wide - but popped over two points and Murphy came on at full forward, with Dwyer dropping back to the 40, and settled the match with a goal a minute from the end of normal time.

It was a frustrating afternoon for Meath, whose three star forwards all had afternoons best forgotten. Captain Brendan Reilly was sent off for a second bookable offence in the 50th minute. He may have been unlucky in that he appeared to have been pushed in the lead-up to the incident but there was no argument over referee John Bannon's decision.

Reilly had already shown signs of enduring a difficult afternoon. In the second minute, he judged to perfection a ball dropping inside the Kildare full backs but saw Christy Byrne pull off a fine save and Ronan Quinn - who had the better of Reilly otherwise - boot the ball into touch.

Tommy Dowd was well marked by Brian Lacey and although he tried hard to rally the team and pull the result out of the fire as he had managed against Louth, this was a below-par display.

Finally, and decisively, Trevor Giles suffered a bad knee injury. He said afterwards that he had never been replaced injured since arriving on the senior side. For a couple of minutes after the injury he kept that record intact before yielding to the inevitable and going off in the 56th minute.

This meant that just as the match was heading for its decisive phase, Meath lost the one player who could have imposed order on their chaotic attacks and mapped a route through Kildare's solid defence, within which Glen Ryan again led by example.

Meath did unexpectedly well in certain spheres and unexpectedly poorly in others. Had anyone been told before the match that John McDermott and Nigel Nestor would dominate centrefield, they would have assumed that Kildare would be wiped out.

Yet Niall Buckley and Willie McCreery, who have enjoyed great success as a partnership, were overshadowed by their opponents. Nestor played exceptionally well on Buckley and McDermott gave a towering performance, winning ball - particularly at the end, when Meath looked to have conjured up another of their classic escapes - and having his best game in two years.

During the first half, when Kildare were having their usual problems converting possession into scores, it was easy to lose sight of the fact that Meath were experiencing the same dysfunction. By the end of the afternoon, Kildare had been outdone on the wides tally, an outcome nearly as rare as their title success.

Meath admitted to relief at being on level terms at the interval, given their inaccuracies.

The match was won at the back. From Meath's starting forward lines, only one point was scored throughout the afternoon. Tackling and blocking was effective - John Finn's 64th minute block on Ray Magee the exemplar - as the defence concentrated intensely on the job in hand.

At times they had to, in the light of a game plan which seemingly necessitated two passes across the back for every metre gained. But they survived the occasional alarm to provide a solid platform for the rest of the team. That centrefield couldn't magnify the effort prevented a more comfortable victory but the team wasn't to be denied.

For all the wastefulness in attack, Kildare's forwards still chipped in enough scores to copper-fasten the victory. Eddie McCormack had the lion's share of the chances but his two-point haul was countered by four wides.

Declan Kerrigan was expected to give Barry Callaghan problems if he ran at the Meath defence. In the event, Callaghan generally coped well - although he was booked for fouling his opponent - but Kerrigan lost him for a first-half point before leaving the field concussed in the incident which cost Reilly the remainder of his participation.

Padraig Gravin delivered a gutsy performance in the left corner and posed a frequent threat to Mark O'Reilly. In addition his free-taking was again top-class, with an 80 per cent return for four points.