He was crying like a baby. "Sure maybe he's just a big softie after all," said Dara O Cinneide affectionately. "It's more enjoyable as a player," said the big softie, a veteran of these winning dressing-rooms. "But when you are two stone overweight and 44 years of age and going slow, winning one as a manager isn't bad either."

Paidi O Se.

Something in his genes means he's made for the big time although he looks singularly unsuited for it. On the big days for Kerry when he was still a player he was one of those always pencilled in as being thoroughly reliable. On the bad days, well, they were so few they have slipped the memory.

In the aftermath of another big day yesterday he struggled into his suit and gave out the quotes multilingually. His reign has been dogged by criticism from snipers but yesterday he was able to smile on all who smile. The man who brought Kerry from the wilderness.

Vindicated, Paidi?

"Well I suppose the most important part of it all is that we all feel justified as a management that we weathered all kinds of storms in the lean periods. It wasn't all plain sailing. There were some days before Christmas when not a lot of people thought we'd be able to deliver. We did get the break after Christmas.

"We played Dublin in a challenge game in Parnell Park and began to see it. That was before we played Down in the National League. Things just clicked. We moved the ball and from then things worked out."

About time to be in sight of improvements. There was criticism in the county last summer when having won a deserved Munster title Paidi and his team were deemed to have celebrated too wholeheartedly in the fortnight between provincial and national engagements.

The criticism which beat down on him after last summer's All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Mayo hurt him greatly. Not least the criticism which came from the tongues or pens of former comrades.

"Good boy Paidi," said Jack O'Shea reaching in through the circle of hacks.

"Ah Jacko boy," cried Paidi and bruised Jacko's hand with the squeezing.

The frost between Paidi, the manager and Jacko, the analyst, may have thawed after a difference of opinion about how Kerry's season ended last summer but this year was always going to be difficult. Paidi learned and prepared.

Out the front of Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney is a small practice pitch. A huge wedge of grassy bank runs from one end to the other getting higher and higher as it reaches the endline.

Paidi would bring his team out to the grass bank after they finished one and a half hour's worth of training. They would run the hill, up the narrow pathway in pairs. No Paidi team was going to get caught for stamina.

"We always said that they would come with a kick and when it came that we would have it in ourselves to stand up and be counted. "It's not so much the emotion I remember, just being delighted that it was over. It has been a long year. Next Tuesday night we will have been at this for exactly a year. Training for this."

When the kick from his critics came Paidi wasn't going to get caught either. There had always been a patronising view in certain circles in Kerry that given the force with which Paidi repeatedly hurled his cap into the ring whenever the Kerry management job was mentioned he would eventually have to be given his chance. Unspoken was the assumption that the subsequent humiliation of it would silence him.

When it came to Paidi's management career one sensed that there was plenty of goodwill and affection but some ambivalence when it came to respect. Paidi understood and resented that. If he has scores to settle, though, he will choose his moment. A lifetime of defending thought him something about timing.

"The main thing today is that Kerry are All-Ireland champions again. It isn't about any one man or about Paidi O Se. It is about Kerry football."

He stands and smiles. Gives an interview in Irish. Speaks about Maurice Fitz. Peace in his eyes after a year of strain.

He was brighter and has more savvy than anybody gave him credit for, though.

He forged a working relationship with Seamus Mac Gearailt which helped him build politically strategic bridges at county board level. Looking back at his team selections, the learning curve is no more erratic than with any other inter-county manager. The proof is in the record. Kerry are unbeaten in competitive football this year.

"Did people doubt me personally? Well I don't know, I couldn't answer that. I didn't doubt myself. This has been a team performance on the management side. Getting the best out of ourselves as a management team. We managed to work together. No question."

Paidi looked after himself personally too. Paidi O Se's His pub in Ventry is a place filled with bonhomie and good vibes and a difficult precinct in which to avoid drink but Paidi managed it, never permitting a whiff of it on his breath from the time the team got back to senior training until, one fondly imagines, last night.

He watched himself in private and he offered up no hostages in public either. When Vinnie Murphy moved to Kerry and started plying his trade on Strand Road, Paid i sampled the wind of public opinion and decided he could get along without Vinnie. This year the controversial quotes from one of the most loquacious men in football wouldn't fill the back of a postage stamp.

There had been small hiccups in the past. Managing UCC one year they ran into a talented Athlone RTC side and exited the Sigerson Cup. Much snickering among those who doubted Paidi.

He had committed a few criticisms of a previous Kerry regime to the airwaves via Radio na Gaeltachta. That hadn't gone down well.

Paidi learned caution.

Yesterday, as the minutes ticked away, the cautious side of him exerted itself again. From his 10 All-Ireland appearances as a player it was the traumatic defeat of 1982 which sprang to his mind.

"I thought of 1982 and I felt that on a couple of occasions that when Mayo could have got scores but didn't get scores that perhaps it wasn't going to work out for them. But you can't lose sight of what might happen."

In his kingdom at last. Paidi O Se. A strange sort of favourite son, but a favourite nonetheless.