Less than a week since his side collected Sam Maguire and Pat O'Shea greets you in the hotel lobby wearing sneakers, a pair of jeans and a casual Navy 36 sweater.

There's no shirt, no tie, no air of pretence and throughout the three hours' chat, no interruption or sign of recognition from someone spotting the manager of the All Ireland champions.

That we're meeting in Ennis, where his work as a Munster Council head coaching officer has taken him this afternoon, only partly explains it. There isn't a hotel lobby or coffee shop in Ireland that a Ger Loughnane or Paidi O Se or even unassuming men like John Allen or Mickey Harte could go undisturbed for that length of time but O'Shea's everyday-man vibe and look insulates him from that. His appearance and essence is that of the same Pat O'Shea you might have met 20 years ago bouncing a basketball on his way to shoot some hoops with St Paul's.

And deep down that's how he feels too. The job for him finished at five o'clock last Sunday. At the function on Sunday night his fellow Dr Crokes clubmate and former All Star Connie Murphy found himself repeatedly saying, "I can't believe this is happening, " that here was his pal and fellow clubman after managing Kerry to an All Ireland. Yet here was that same pal and clubmate beside him, taking it all in his stride, asking Murphy what pint he was having. A week in the life of Pat O'Shea . . . Sunday: win the All Ireland. Tuesday: collect the kids from school. Wednesday: take Deborah Ann for some lunch, drop Gavin off to training. Friday: meet Noel O'Driscoll in Clare. It's just a shame that there's not another game with Kerry pencilled in for the coming days.

"If anyone said to us in the dressing room afterwards last Sunday, 'Lads, ye have to go again now on Sunday week', I'd have loved that.

We were enjoying what we were doing, I felt the lads were getting better. That's the biggest disappointment; not having another. In that dressing room afterwards I was like, 'This is unbelievable. But let's start again right now.'" That's what it's about to him; the journey, not the destination. Last March he was coach to the Crokes side that lost the All Ireland club final replay in controversial circumstances but O'Shea promptly congratulated Crossmaglen in their dressing room on their victory. He came in for some stick for that stance but O'Shea stands by his concession of defeat. "We could make all the excuses we wanted but it's not Crossmaglen's fault that their player didn't go off when he was meant to go off.

Like, we missed a penalty.

Now that was under our control. I wasn't going to run after the ref or the GAA and say, 'Lads, be nice to us; give us another shot.' We had a hell of a year and were very close to winning the All Ireland but it just didn't happen."

There was a time he wouldn't have been that philosophical; in his courting days with Deborah Ann there were nights when he could barely talk to her after some defeat with Paul's or the Crokes. But then one night in a gym in Andersonstown, an opponent, John Kennedy, dropped dead at O'Shea's side crossing the court at half-time. "John was 44. He still played the game and he loved the game and the enjoyment it gave his family. And it wasn't about whether they were going to win the league. St Gall's hadn't won a game that year. It wasn't about that. That night taught me, win or lose, enjoy the bloody game."

It was that perspective more than anything which O'Shea brought to Kerry this year. He knew he was inheriting a gifted team moulded magnificently by Jack O'Connor. But O'Shea clearly remembers seeing Jack and players the morning of last year's qualifier against Longford and being struck by how stressed they appeared.

After winning the league?

After being in the previous two All Irelands? The journey had to be more fun this time round.

"That was the crucial thing for me this year. When we first met with the group last November we spoke about how the group had a great opportunity to go back to back. Now, that had nothing to do with me, which was great, because it meant the players would get their proper recognition then if they pulled it off. Our job was to help each player make some individual improvements to their game and above all, enjoy their football. Like, that's what this is all about, being a release from the mundane and an opportunity to put a smile on people's faces, including our own. It's like being back as an under12 with the club and sprinting out of that dressing room just wanting to go out and have fun and not think of all that other stuff that can drag you down."

A case in point. The Gooch.

Cooper and O'Shea aren't so much clubmates as soulmates; even last week Cooper reiterated how much of his own game was modelled on O'Shea's. A few days after their beloved club were beaten in the All Ireland club final replay, Cooper informed O'Shea he had no interest in playing Kerry's remaining game in Parnell Park the following week. He had been on the go for two years non-stop.

He needed the break. O'Shea appreciated Cooper's plight and the value of rest; he had already given Darragh O Se leave of absence for the same fixture and told him to treat his wife to a nice meal. But Cooper, he sensed, needed this game. That Friday they met in town for coffee.

"I said, 'Colm, you know this weekend this might be excellent therapy. It's like the kid falling off the bike; the best thing to do is get back on the bike'. So he decides to travel and on the way up I ask him does he feel like playing.

He says 'Yeah.' He's back with his friends, feeling at home.

And he goes and scores a goal a virtual replica of the one against Cork last Sunday. And we come back that night and he's smiling again and that smile doesn't leave him all year. That's the great thing about the GAA; people say you're only as good as your last game but really, there's always a next game, and by availing of it, Colm's last game suddenly wasn't Crossmaglen; it was beating the Dubs."

He pressed other buttons with other players. When he inherited the Kerry job from O'Connor, the chatrooms assumed his clubman Eoin Brosnan would inherit Declan O'Sullivan's number 11 jersey but before O'Sullivan took sabbatical in Australia, O'Shea made a point of meeting him to assure him he would be a central figure in his plans. When O'Sullivan returned, O'Shea had another brief chat with him.

"I said, 'Declan, I don't want to change any bit of your game but I would love for you to get forward into scoring positions a bit more'.

I was never going to go through the year saying, 'This is how I want you to play'. I could have done that with rookies or a team of underachievers but these guys were the All Ireland champions. I was like, 'We're not going to change too much here; let's just see if we can get a little bit more here'."

One way of doing that was to remind them this was their team. Their responsibility.

"That was one of the key words this year when I spoke to the players. The other was ownership. They were now the standard bearers of Kerry football. Up to last year Seamus Moynihan had been the face of responsibility in that dressing room and he now had passed that torch onto them. A vacuum had to be filled by the individuals and the group."

And it was. He could see it in the way the likes of Tom O'Sullivan and even Gooch who normally would leave their football and others do the talking become more verbally expressive. And he could see it in the closing stages of the Munster final and against Monaghan and against Dublin. Up to this year hadn't won a game by less than three points in over 16 years; this year they won they three by that margin or less.

And now, being the introspective, reflective type that he is, he finds himself thinking about those words again.

Ownership and responsibility. Where does his end?

Where does theirs, in these heady days?

"I think over the last 20 years GAA managers haven't helped the general welfare of our players. We . . . and I would include myself in that 'we' . . . expect players to stay alcohol-free for nine months of the year and by doing so we're cultivating a bingedrinking culture then in the off-season. That's not healthy for their personal development. We're back to responsibility and ownership. When it came to drink, we had nothing cast in stone. We explained the implications of abusing it; that if you do, you're not going to be able to produce in training so you're not going to play in matches; but a fella having a glass of wine with his wife or the odd pint or two with a friend, that's balance. Instead we're getting phonecalls from players' loved ones in the off-season and we're saying to the lads, 'Will you cop yourself on here? You're falling around the street for the last two weeks'. But the player can say back, 'Wait a second, you told me to stay off it for nine months; this is my time now'.

In a way we've put them in that position and I'm asking myself because my term technically finished last Sunday, does my responsibility as well? Or do I say, 'Right, you're All Ireland champions; you can drink until Christmas?'" Other than such deliberations, he can't get over how enjoyable the gig has been.

He senses he's not alone too.

There's a wonderful photograph from last month's epic semi-final of O'Shea and Paul Caffrey sharing a laugh on the line. What's remarkable about that laugh and that photo is that it took place when the game was in injurytime and Kerry holding on to the ball and a one-point lead. "We've the ball over in the corner by Hill 16 and the Cusack side, " recalls O'Shea, "and Paul says to me, ' 'Pat, ye've got two guys over here and we've nobody marking them.' And I say, 'Well, Paul, you're not going to get telling your lads to get over and mark them, and I'm not going to be able to tell my guys with the ball to get it into them.

The two of us are just going to have watch this one from here.'" And for a moment they were both brothers, united in one moment, helpless, and laughing at being so helpless.

Seconds later Colm Cooper transferred that ball over to Sean O'Sullivan who transferred it over the bar and Kerry virtually had the game sealed but O'Shea today still feels Caffrey and himself share a bond, a code. They are the men in the arena, not those cold, timid souls who'll never know victory nor defeat. The game is great and it's there to be loved. Winning isn't everything; trying to win is.

Up to last week there were still those in and outside Kerry who saw Pat O'Shea as a nearly man, the county's own version of John Maughan. Now he's an All Ireland winner. Someone as assure and as secure as O' Shea though was never going to let that affect his self-esteem.

"I feel no sense of vindication, no. In the Crokes we lost two county finals to a better team. In the All Ireland club, we could have won, probably should have won the first day and if I had to do things again, I'd do some things differently but it never came into my mind 'Pat, you can bring a team so far but they ain't going to win'. The basketball coach Hubie Brown always said the top coaches give their team a chance to win; it's up to the team to win then."

Kerry were good enough to win.

So was their coach. Next time you see that everyday man, salute him, will you?