Superb final can’t mask deficiencies
IT is unusual that the football Championship came to an end with the best game of the year. But that is exactly what happened. The All-Ireland football final left over 82,000 supporters struggling for breath after a game where over 40 players gave everything they had.
Many of those players were out on their feet at the end. The exhaustion didn’t come from a lack of fitness, just the break-neck pace that the game was played at.
Dublin and Mayo are the two undisputed superpowers of Gaelic football at present. That didn’t become clear until the semi-finals, but it is clear now that these two are a good bit ahead of the rest.
But an All-Ireland final that had everything cannot mask a Championship where so many teams are being left behind. The 30 other counties who will line up for the 2018 football season all have big issues to address. Some, such as Kerry and Tyrone, will be attmepting to catch up with the big two while others just have to focus on not falling further behind. And a lot will see getting into the Super 8 as their only tangible ambition.
The game of Gaelic football is coming to a crossroads. If wrong decisions are taken within counties — and at national level — we could be left with a Super 8 plus seven or eight other counties, while 16 other counties might simply disappear off the radar altogether.
I believe things are that stark for the game.
In my own career, I have been fortunate enough to have managed at both ends of the scale. I can see the attraction of the Super Eight, both for supporters and the strongest teams. But it is also going to cause issues in the smaller counties, as they are the ones who suffer the largest turnover in personnel.
I saw it myself in Leitrim this year. But it is not confined to Leitrim. All Division 4 counties have a similar problem. Johnny Magee talked about the issue during his time in charge of Wicklow. If the same counties are on the sidelines, year after year, as the country gets excited by the Super Eight, it will be even harder for teams at the bottom to keep players interested. That will be a future problem for the GAA, but there have been plenty of issues shown up in this year’s Championship, despite a wonderful final.
In Leinster, there was some progress from Kildare and — to their credit — Carlow. But most of the teams seem to be going in the opposite direction. Westmeath suffered the heaviest Championship defeat in years. Laois fell to Division 4. Meath flattered to deceive yet again.
But Leinster isn’t alone in a province with problems. The decline of Ulster football has been stark, although one positive may be the death of the blanket defence and good riddance to that.
At both ends of the summer we saw teams that specialise in this massed defence — Donegal and Tyrone — struggle dramatically. Another one, Monaghan, have to ask themselves questions as to why they can impress early in the season and fail to stand up when required on the national stage. Of all the teams that occupy the second rung of football’s ladder, it is critical that Monaghan get into the Super 8 next summer.
There are teams that are capable of moving forward but just seem to be stuck in perpetual under-achievement like Cork. Indeed, Connacht was the most competitive province this year.
But taking a glance ahead to 2018, it is Kerry and Tyrone who need to find the ammunition to close the gap on Dublin and Mayo. In Kerry, it is a crisis not to have won an All-Ireland in three years — particularly when Sam Maguire is residing in the capital during all of those winters.
They have won the past four AllIreland minor titles, so there is nothing wrong with their assembly line. But they need a big injection of those players over the coming couple of years. The talk is that David Clifford shouldn’t be rushed into the Kerry senior team, but he seems to have the character and physique to survive there.
For Tyrone, they need a complete change of tactical approach. Their system of keeping 13 or 14 players inside their own 45-metre line was blown asunder by Dublin. Unless Kerry and Tyrone find something extra over the winter, the best game of the Championship next year could also be the All-Ireland final — simply because the two best teams are so far ahead.