Championship never started with a bang as it was

THE most appealing game of the opening weekend of the All Ireland senior football championship… is the National Hurling League final between Clare and Kilkenny in Tom Semple’s field.

That, we guess, is just the nature of this condensed season where there’s little or no space and time for anything to breathe, where one competition can step on another’s thunder so egregiously.

Still, it’s not like it’s hurling’s fault that the football championship starts in such a lowkey fashion. There are games that absolutely will mean everything for the competing counties – some of the games in Leinster, the Ulster clash between Cavan and Monaghan – but to the wider public it’s all a bit, well, underwhelming isn’t it?

As a football person you’d probably like a little more razzmatazz – although first you’d need something to get razzed about – for the start of the most important competition of the season, but it’s kind of always been thus for Gaelic football. The championship sputtering into life, half apologetically, rather than grabbing us by the scruff of the neck and demanding our attention.

Even under the old system the start of the championship usually sort of crept up on you, a game in the Bronx late of a Sunday evening in early May starting the firing pistol more often than not. Now, though, they seem to be starting indecently early, but again it’s less the timing and more the sense it’s starting with a whimper rather than a roar that’s disappointing.

As long as the provincial championships remain as they are and where they are that’s probably just the way it’s going to be unfortunately.