SIDELINE CUT:Their latest victory merely adds to Kerry's powerful self-perpetuating aura and tradition, writes KEITH DUGGAN

WHAT NOW? After what has seemed like an All-Ireland football championship season consisting of an endless series of wet Sunday football matches, Kerry reign as the undisputed masters once again. For every footballer harbouring Terry Molloy’s frustrated ambitions, for all the contenders and the managers dreaming up new plans of marine corps fitness and revolutionary attack lines, this latest Kerry vindication of quality must be the most depressing, the most withering of all.

A messy summer of football underlined the fact that, when you strip away all the skill and strength that has defined the Kingdom football team, you are left with the most important of all sporting qualities – resilience.

The Cagey Men do not quit.

They achieved their 36th title by chugging along on a mediocre, uninspired line of form, except for the two conspicuous occasions which required a bold, clear statement – the shimmering, evocative quarter-final against Dublin and the border duel of an All-Ireland final against Cork. For both those matches, Kerry shook off their indifferent form as easily as a chameleon changes colours.

They belied the old sporting cliché that you cannot turn it on like a light switch. Twice this sodden summer the Kerry men did just that.

No other county can fashion an All-Ireland title with such stop-start displays. All of the other realistic All-Ireland contenders are locked into a system where performances are as fine-tuned – and as temperamental – as a Formula One car. All must be in perfect synchronicity by August.

In retrospect, it could be argued Cork peaked against Tyrone. It could be said Tyrone, compromised by the illness suffered by Seán Cavanagh on the morning of that semi-final, failed to achieve the blend of speed, skill and aggression that yielded them three All-Irelands. Kerry exposed the Dublin fort as a paper construct.

Much as the GAA yearns for a September appearance by the sky blues, next year will require a bold new strategy as Dublin seek to make up for lost time. Galway, Derry, Mayo, Monaghan, Limerick, Armagh and Kildare exited the championship with the gnawing feeling that they might have gone further.

Donegal, Wicklow, Antrim and Meath can each claim to have gone as far as could have reasonably been expected. Cork were the most impressive team of the year until All-Ireland final Sunday. The theory that they are young and a rising team is true.

But equally true is that the latest big-match defeat at the hands of their neighbours was of the kind that can crush the soul of a team – permanently. Cork might have come closer than they realised to ridding themselves of those infernal green-and-gold hoop neighbours last Sunday. Ten minutes gone and 1-3 to 0-1 ahead, Cork looked rampant and it was hard to see how Kerry could live with their pace for the next hour.

If they could have tapped on just two more points, then it is possible the Kerry men might have bowed to the irrepressible form Cork had shown; that they might have become an old team in front of 80,000 people.

But no. Kerry fought their way back into contention on the back of two forgettable, bread and butter frees earned (the second a tad softly with the luckless Anthony Lynch deemed the guilty man) and converted by Colm Cooper. Three points in it now and the Kingdom machine was back in business.

You could see how doubts would flash through Cork minds now. They had opened brilliantly, flashing over a couple of wonderful scores and delivering a sensational goal courtesy of young Colm O’Neill. They had done everything perfectly! But now what?

Those hoary old ______ (fill is as you please) had not even blinked. They weren’t going anywhere. It wasn’t panic that began to engulf the Cork men then. Instead, they gradually became enveloped by despair.

Between the 10th and 23rd minutes, Cork managed a solitary free and Kerry rattled off six points on the trot. They took the lead and never relinquished it. The second half was both an exhibition in defensive excellence and, for the rest of the world, a grand yawn.

It is not the majestic fielding or the searing individual runs or the spectacular point- scoring that win All-Irelands for Kerry as much as scores like Cooper worked – the diligence and doggedness and patience required to earn possession, draw the foul, tap it over, summer in and summer out, ad infinitum. Kerry win so much because they never abandon the basics.

Judged against the granite, unyielding quality of Kerry’s All-Ireland final performance, it must be tempting for all those counties to give in to a kind of hopelessness.

Since 2003, no county – apart from the glittering exception that is Tyrone – has shown either the psychological nerve or football splendour to remove this generation of Kerry footballers. As we race into autumn, we should look back at Sligo’s ambition and courage in Austin Stack Park as one of the stand-out displays of a meek summer.

The Kerry men knew they were lucky that day. All the old Kingdom gods helped to guide them through that day. Kerry are ‘lucky’ in all sorts of ways. No other county has the luxury of bringing an athlete and footballer of the calibre of Tadhg Kennelly home to deepen their reserve of talent. No other county has fostered a culture that enables its young footballers to see winning All-Irelands as a rite of passage. No other county has the power to spook opponents through the aura of its past and of what those green and gold jerseys represent. The more Kerry win, the more unbreakable the mythology becomes.

And the voices of the greying greats, the mischievous influence of Pat Spillane, the folkloric genius of Weeshie Fogarty, the perpetually hungry fans, the immortal broadcasts of Michael Ó Muircheartaigh, the walking legend that is Mick O’Dwyer: all the personalities, the stories and the titles feed this monster that becomes terribly hard – if not impossible – for other teams to beat in their minds, let alone on the field of play.

But luck does not come into the equation. This generation of Kerry players are special and strange. Their dauntless ambition has set them apart as much as their varied gifts at Gaelic football. But they are strange in that their pursuit of GAA history has been achieved with a collective seriousness that has sometimes made them appear grim. They are a cagey group, wary of saying too much – or anything at all.

Some would argue the trivia is unimportant – what difference would it make if Tommy Griffin admitted that, after a hard training session, he liked nothing better than to play Carly Simon’s greatest hits at full volume on the way home? It makes none. But it does seem a slight shame that a Kerry team that is destined to go down as one of the greatest has remained steadfastly unknowable – and therefore only to be admired coldly and distantly – during their reign.

For instance, it made no difference that Brian Lohan of Clare, who kept his public utterances sharp and bright, once responded, when asked to list a chief regret, that it was missing a performance by American Music Club in the Olympia because of a hurling match. It was a small but unforgettable insight that somehow made his gladiatorial outings in the red helmet more explicable.

So Kerry march on. It wasn’t their most polished All-Ireland but they say it ranks among the sweetest. As ever, 31 caps are doffed in admiration – and obedience. The Kingdom, bejewelled and secure, can pass another winter lightly.