WHAT is it about this Kerry team? Every time you think they're in trouble, real trouble, they bounce back... and bounce back in style. How many times over recent seasons (under both Pat O'Shea and Jack O'Connor) have they looked dead and buired – against Cork in the All Ireland semi-final in 2008, against Sligo last year – and yet bounced back?

While Sunday wasn't nearly as dire a situation as the two highlighted above the fact is that were Kerry to lose on Sunday then Divison 2 football for the 2011 season was looking a distinct possiblity.

Kerry were looking decidedly ropey for large stretches of this game. In the first half in particular they lacked shape and dynamism. With the wind favouring Derry the Kingdom were there for the taking.

Instead Derry proceeded to hit a shockingly high tally of eleven first half wides. Not all of those were scorable and yes, while the wind favoured them, it was swirling and difficult. Nevertheless five of six of those chances were gilt-edged.

There seemed to be little bite to Kerry's game, little desire to scrap it out. Where there was breaking ball to be won Derry won it, when there was a kickout to be won Fergal Doherty more often than not got the better of Seamus Scanlon and Micheal Quirke. Living off scraps the Kingdom's forward division did, however, look sharp.

Newcomer David O'Callaghan took to his task with an admirable passion and doggedness. It was his first start in the big leagues, but you wouldn't have known it from watching the Blennerville man on Sunday. Sure there are corners to be knocked off his game here and there, but his determination to get stuck in, to stake his claim, to show that he belonged out there on that field in that jersey speaks highly of him.

Within quarter of an hour the St Pats man had a point, drawing the Kingdom level. Less than a minute after O'Callaghan's point Killian Young, who was Kerry's driving force in the first half, put his team in front. Kieran Donaghy too was in fine form, revelling, it seemed, in being re-united with Colm Cooper.

The inter-change between the two men for Kerry fourth point of the day reminding us just how dangerous a partnership the two are when on form.

Aside from the five minute spurt in the early teens when Kerry hit four in quick succession to go in front the impetus remained with the Oak Leaf county.

Direct from the kick-out after Donaghy's second point Derry had the ball in the back of Brendan Kealy's net. Fergal Doherty (having won the kick-out) found Eoin Bradley in an amount of space. The Derry number fifteen took full advantage, going on the run and striking a powerful effort past the Kilcummin shot-stopper.

He didn't have a chance. Toward the end of the half, with Derry having forged a three point lead again, Kealy was again placed in a seemingly doomed situation. Fergal Doherty was in possession of the ball, nothing between him and an empty net, but Kealy. He blasted it, yet the young keeper somehow managed to get a hand to it. It stuck the crossbar, stuck the ground and bounced to safety.

It was the winning and the losing of this game. A six point lead would have been too much even for this Kerry team to overcome. Instead the impressive Kealy had given them a lifeline. Right from the restart it looked like they were going to grab it eagerly. Points from David Moran (who only came to life in the second half) and Colm Cooper (from a placed ball) put Derry on the backfoot straight away.

It proved to be something of an illusory recovery by Kerry, Derry hit back and with ten minutes gone Jack O'Connor's men were no closer to overhauling Damien Cassidy's side. Gradually and with the Kerry managment team shaking things up somewhat – Anthony Maher coming in to replace Seamus Scanlan and Bryan Sheehan replacing Darran O'Sullivan – Kerry began to work their way into the game.

Facing the breeze Derry's keeper Martin Dunne (on for the injured Barry Gillis) struggled to get the ball much further than the half-back line. Micheal Quirke sensed blood and for the next twenty five minutes of so either broke or won the majority of Dunne's kick-outs – Dunne inexplicably kept hitting the ball towards the big Strand Road man even when it was clear he had Doherty's match. Not that Quirke was complaining.

Donaghy, impressive but starved of possession in the first half, began to really upset Kevin McCloy (who picked up a yellow card for tugging on the Austin Stacks man's jersey) and create space for others to profit.

David Moran finally began to show what he's capable of. His shooting (aside from the placed ball) was assured, he began to tackle and harry and track back.

Derry were out of ideas. It was only a matter of time before Kerry pulled clear. Points from Donaghy, Moran, Declan Sullivan as well as frees from Colm Cooper saw to that. There was a fluidity and an urgency to Kerry's play that hasn't been evident thus far. Kerry were back playing football and when they do there's few who can stop them. Derry couldn't.

It's a victory that puts Kerry in fourth spot in the Divison One table. They've gone from relegation threatened to being darkhorses for the title in the space of twenty minutes.

That's Kerry football in a nutshell.

- Damian Stack at Austin Stack Park, Tralee