AFTER the glories the recent hurling weekends, the dowdier world of football came into focus yesterday. It's proving to be one of those years for the big ball game. Out shone by the dazzling matches of a vintage hurling season, football has been unable to respond with much.

To make bad worse, two of what might have been the best matches of the year were undermined by heavy rain.

The Connacht final looked promising because in the view of many, the much put upon province had provided the best match of the year to date - the Galway Leitrim semi final - whereas Cork Kerry encounters always hold out reasonable prospects of a decent match.

Cork captain Mark O'Connor made the point after the match. There was, he said, less deliberate fouling in Monster than in other provinces and more of a genuine desire to play football. As a general rule he's right but in the last six years, this purity of heart hasn't produced a team with the desire and drive to win an All Ireland.

Kerry's re-emergence may change this but we won't know that until the new Munster champions have locked horns with the All Ireland heavyweights from Leinster and Ulster. So far, Tyrone look the most accomplished side in the championship and it is against that standard that Kerry will have to be judged before a Munster revival can be confirmed.

Anyway, Kerry's return is a positive development. Bizarre as it may have seemed 10 years ago, their victory brings novelty and freshness to the championship, and the health of the game in its strongholds is always an important indicator. Whereas the utter domination of football established by Micko Dwyer's team, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, ended up a trifle wearying, there are reasons to question the occasional clamour for a new superteam to inject glamour into what has become an egalitarian but increasingly grim championship.

Neither state of affairs is ideal. It's possible to see the attraction in having one team rule the world for a couple of years in order to fire the ambitions of others, but the last five years have in fact been compelling even if the standard has fallen. Attendances have risen, particularly at semi finals, which in the past attracted few takers given that they frequently involved Connacht and Ulster teams being fed to the lions.

None of the above is to suggest that Kerry are about to dominate the decade - as has been claimed on their behalf in some enthusiastic quarters but they certainly have potential to win All Irelands.

This promise of things to come was already almost palpable in the Imperial Hotel in Cork at Sunday lunchtime. The Kerry panel were booked in for pre match meetings and the foyer was swarming with supporters. County secretary Tony O'Keeffe was prominently stationed to dispense tickets to a variety of supplicants.

One man stopped with his son to talk briefly. He told O'Keeffe to make sure they won because his young fella wanted to go to Croke Park. The scene was almost poignant: a Kerry kid all excited about a trip to Croke Park.

According to O'Keeffe, there had been a great damburst of optimism concerning the current team. For the first time in a long time, Kerry people felt the corner had been turned, that even if they couldn't do it this year, a breakthrough wasn't far off.

The weekend's breakthrough was the product of a well structured team. Paidi O Se's fervent psyching up of the players from the sideline is part of the management influence, but Seamus Mac Gearailt's tactical acumen plays an equally significant role.

O Se's impact on morale goes beyond the tubthumping stereotype. Team captain Billy O'Shea made the point after the match that the spirit within the panel was exceptional and that old bonds forged at under age level had been considerably strengthened.

This could be seen in the way Kerry held the pass in the critical closing 10 minutes. That desire to push for home won't emerge from a team unless the unit is strong. It drew out substantial performances from a number of players, none more remarked upon than Maurice Fiztgerald's.

With a reasonable claim on being the most talented footballer of his generation, the Cahirciveen man has been unlucky in his era. Much of the criticism aimed at him has been the result of misplaced expectation. As a consummate ball player, Fitzgerald needs a context. If the team plays badly, he has no opportunity to turn the tide single handedly but if the team provides any sort of a platform, he will win matches as he did on Sunday.

IT was not by accident that he made an immediate impact when part of the declining years of Dwyer's reign. Surrounded by more experienced players, he was able maximise his own input. In the years since then, he has been expected to do more on his own and has also suffered from injuries to an almost chronic extent.

His previous two championship visits to Pairc Ui Chaoimh were in vivid contrast. At the end of the hugely disappointing 1994 defeat by Cork, a home supporter could be heard observing: "Mahhrice Fitzgerruld mus' be de mos' overra'ed playurr evurr".

Evidence of a short memory. Whereas some have said that last Sunday was Fitzgerald's greatest display in a Kerry jersey, it actually wasn't. Because two years before he was so sweepingly denounced by a gloating Corkie, he had scored 18 during Kerry's sparkling demolition of Cork and had been magnificent. Adequately supplied and given the freedom to best express himself he took Cork apart.

That same match had a bitter aftermath - crushing defeat by Clare in that year's historic Munster final. There are lessons to be learned from that sequence.

To say that Kerry will now dominate the decade is to jump the gun by a couple of days rather than a split second. That 1992 team would quite possibly have won the All Ireland. But they didn't, the management changed, confidence evaporated and the county's fortunes slumped.

Cork simply went away and unearthed a few more players, fired them up a bit and won the next three Munster titles. Given that the county has won as many under age All Irelands in the last three years as Kerry, it would be foolish to say that such an eventuality can't come about again.

What Kerry do now will be of utmost importance. Were they to win an All-Ireland or come close, the momentum of the new management team's first season would have been established. Should they, however, slip up, confidence would be badly affected and Cork wouldn't be out of the equation for another 12 months let alone 10 years.

Furthermore, in the light of that Clare precedent, it probably hasn't escaped their notice that John Maughan is again waiting for them, this time with his native Mayo.