The door of the Kerry dressingroom is thrown open and the media scrum lurches towards Colm Cooper. RTÉ get there first and pull him away for his man-of-the-match award. Marc Ó Sé calls him back - "Gooch!" - and throws him his belt, knowing the poor guy needs it more than most.

Cooper is cornered on his way back in, the piece of crystal stuffed into his gear bag as if it's the last thing he wants to be seen with. He's dressed in a retro polo short and casual-on-casual jacket, and still looks about 17.

A great day, Colm? "Yeah, it was all about getting into another All-Ireland final," he says - not realising we were referring to him. "That's what it's all about it."

But your scores Colm, what about those scores?

"Ah, some days they go over, some days they don't. Maybe the overall team performance hasn't happened for us so far for various reasons, but I think we did step it up this time. It's all about the next day now, and we know we'll have to find another bit again if we're going to win it.

"And we'd hope there is more left, and we're going to need everything we have to win. We won't know if it's there until we go to the well again looking for it. But the training has been very competitive and there's fierce competition for places at the moment. We'll keep that going over the next three weeks and sure you wouldn't know what team Jack will put out the next day."

Yet, somewhere inside, Cooper must be relishing the thought of playing Armagh or Tyrone in an All-Ireland final - the two teams tormented his first two years as a Kerry senior.

"From the outset we just said we'd look after ourselves," he adds, still obsessed with spreading the spotlight. "We've done our bit of the battle now. But it's not about revenge or anything like that. It's about winning back-to-back All-Irelands. That's all that matters now."

In the Kerry dressingroom Jack O'Connor is putting some words on yet another faultless display by his young forward: "I'm not the first person to say it, but this is a great man."

There are two Ulster teams left, he's quietly reminded, and that guarantees a hard task come the final. "Well sure we'll only be playing one of them," he interjects. "But, of course, it will be a fascinating one, because obviously there is a contrast in styles. And I do think some of the hurt of 2002 and 2003 has driven this team over the past two years."

After a result like this the last word must go to the losing manager. Billy Morgan is looking every bit as disappointed as he should after his team's disturbing failure to truly test Kerry.

"I'm devastated," he admits, "because I know we were much better than that and I know we just didn't play. We talked about what we needed to do and decided we were going to push it on, but we didn't do that. So we didn't do ourselves justice.

"Our midfield had been so dominant, but Kerry cleaned up. Kerry were picking up all the breaks and that was really where they punished us. They have their homework done, so fair play to them. They also played some great diagonal ball, which made it very hard for our corner backs. But I know this team will regroup. It's a young team and they're the type of players that have a future with Cork."