The 16th Man

IT’S the dream All-Ireland final, the one the GAA has been waiting for since 1985.

Tickets are to be treasured like rare jewels and if Croke Park held 150,000 people it’d be full when Dublin take on Kerry next Sunday.

With the Premiership back in full swing and the Rugby World Cup up and running Gaelic football could struggle for oxygen. But there’s no danger of anyone ignoring this All-Ireland final.

People talk about the rivalry between these two counties, but in truth that’s based on a brief period, often viewed through rose-tinted glasses, around 30 years ago.

The Dubs, as will be often quoted this week, haven’t beaten the Kingdom since Elvis Presley was alive. They have only played four times in Championship football in the past 25 years, with Kerry winning three and drawing the other.

This final pairing does hold a special mystique though. The most successful county in football history taking on the capital. It’s the classic city-country coming together.

So, what’s going to happen? Well, that’s not an easy one to answer because this is one of the toughest All-Ireland finals to call in recent years.

Without doubt Kerry are worthy favourites. They are the team that has been there and done that.

Most of Jack O’Connor’s team have pocketfuls of All-Ireland medals and many of his men have played in six-plus deciders.

Not a single Dub has ever played on the biggest stage, which is hardly surprising since their last appearance in the Sam Maguire decider was all of 16 years ago.

Dublin will find it easier, a little bit at least, to create space and attack than they did against the massed ranks of Donegal defenders in last month’s All-Ireland semi-final.

But they’ll also be facing a team capable of racking up significantly more than the miserable six points that the Ulster Champions managed in more than 70 minutes of football.

Dublin are set up very differently from the side that bombed against Kerry in the 2009 All-Ireland quarter-final, which ended in a joint-record 17-point defeat, and they don’t look like a team who will be heavily beaten by any team.

So this is setting up to be a tight game. Kerry definitely have the better forwards, but Dublin have a better defence. Midfield might not be an issue given the tactics that are being applied to kick-outs these days.

These are two well-matched sides, but the Kingdom have the better individuals. That looks like being the difference on the day.

AS Sunday’s All-Ireland hurling final proved, big games can be won on the sideline as well as on the pitch.

Kilkenny out-fought Tipperary inside the white lines, but Brian Cody comprehensively out-thought his opposite number Declan Ryan in the dugout.

He set up his team correctly from the start, got his match-ups in defence just right, made the proper switches and had his players prepared to perfection.

With this in mind, there promises to be a fascinating sideline battle of wits in Sunday week’s All-Ireland football final between Dublin and Kerry.

The Kingdom’s Jack O’Connor has repeatedly proven himself to be one of the smartest managers in the business and he has gotten the better of pretty much every one of his contemporaries – bar Tyrone’s Mickey Harte, of course.

His match-winning, season-defining moves have included converting Kieran Donaghy to a full-forward, shifting Declan O’Sullivan to the edge of the square in times of emergency and persuading Mike McCarthy to return from retirement.

This year he has lured Eoin Brosnan back from self-imposed exile while he has reignited Bryan Sheehan’s career by playing him at midfield this season.

Dublin boss Pat Gilroy has yet to win an All-Ireland as a manager, O’Connor has three, and he has learned some harsh lessons on the line.

O’Connor was the first one to expose him in 2009 when the Kingdom beat the Dubs by a joint-record 17-points at the All-Ireland quarter-final stage.

Gilroy is an intelligent man and after that game he went away, decided what was wrong and set about rectifying it.

Last year he came back with a whole new system, based on massed defence and quick counter attacks. It got them as far as the semi-finals and here, against Cork, it was late indiscipline that let them down.

Since then the Boys in Blue have worked tirelessly on their tackling and cutting down on the number of scoreable frees they concede.

Gilroy is regularly in touch with Croke Park looking for feedback, enquiring why referees made certain decisions.

This all shows a keen mind and each of his three campaigns in charge have seen steady progress. 2011 has already seen another step forward – Dublin’s first All-Ireland final appearance in 16 years – but he won’t want to stop here.

O’Connor is the master, having seen and done it all already. Gilroy remains the pupil, but he has learned fast.

Their duel as much as anything that happens on the field will decide the destination of the Sam Magiure on September 18.

IF WE were to believe all that has been written and spoken about Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final, it was the day that football nearly died.

In 2003 Pat Spillane coined the term Puke Football as he watched his beloved Kerry being systematically dismantled by a fitter, hungrier, better drilled Tyrone side.

At the weekend there was talk on the Sunday Game of ‘Armageddon’ and ‘the game from hell’ and it was considered a good thing for football that Dublin won.

Had Donegal come out on top there would have been a clamour for a change in the rules to limit the number of players allowed in the defensive half of the field.

But what the experts are completely missing here is that football is a game of tactics and systems.

Good managers come up with systems to win games. Jim McGuinness believes the best way to win, or perhaps not to lose, is to play eight defenders and get 14 men behind the ball at times.

It’s then up to other teams to come along and break them down - just like the Dubs eventually did yesterday.

Donegal’s style of play is set up to stop other teams from playing.

Its limitation is its lack of ambition, meaning they will always struggle to beat better teams as long as they don’t commit more bodies into attack.

This was only Donegal’s seventh-ever All-Ireland semi-final appearance and this year marked just their sixth Ulster title.

There’s no guarantee that they’ll be back at this stage again next year and it’s hard to see them going any further without significant changes to the game-plan.

If they don’t achieve more success their system will quickly be forgotten about and the outrage will all be proven to be exactly what it is - so much hot air.

Puke Football turned out not only to be effective, so long as you have players like Tyrone had in the last decade, it is also pretty attractive to watch when done right.

Systems are like fashions in that they come and go and each in turn seems to spark outrage from pundits who played themselves in some pretty unattractive games.

Don’t let anybody confuse you - football wasn’t great to watch in the seventies, it’s just that most of it wasn’t televised.

The way Donegal play isn’t a threat to the future of football and the Dubs didn’t save the GAA.

They merely played in a match that was an intensely poor spectacle and one that will be long forgotten when the All-Ireland final comes around in three weeks time.

MICK O’Dwyer’s Kerry team of the seventies and eighties will go down as the greatest Gaelic football side of all-time.

Their achievements are unmatched, the stories of their glory will be told forever and the feats of some of those players will never be equaled.

But perhaps, in the fullness of time, the current Kingdom crop will be remembered with equal reverence.

Micko’s team won an unparalleled eight All-Ireland crowns in 12 seasons, including a four in-a-row and later three titles back-to-back.

They played in ten finals between 1975 and 1986 and it was thought that we would never see their likes again.

But this Kerry team isn’t too far away - nine finals in 12 seasons and five Sam Maguires since 2000. That would make them legends in any other county.

And just look at the players - Darragh, Tomas and Marc O Se, Colm Cooper, Declan O’Sullivan, Seamus Moynihan, Paul Galvin.

These are all stars that would have walked onto any team in any era - including Micko’s.

Of course, the wily Waterville Wizard will always be the most successful manager in football history.

The current Kingdom run was compiled under three different managers - Paidi O Se, Jack O’Connor (twice) and Pat O’Shea.

But many of the faces on the field have remained the same.

Tomas O Se and Tom O’Sullivan are both still hanging around since 2000. The likes of Marc O Se and Colm Cooper, who is only 28-years-old, joined them in 2002.

Just as remarkable as their track-record of final appearances and All-Ireland wins, they have been the All-Ireland semi-finals, at least, every year bar one since 2000.

Last year, when they surprisingly lost to Down at the quarter-final stage with a team shorn of the suspended Galvin and Tomas O Se, was the only time they missed out.

And this was achieved against a far more competitive football landscape than in Kerry’s golden years, when only two or perhaps three counties had a chance of lifting Sam Maguire any given year.

True, the backdoor increased the strong sides’ chances of making it to the latter stages.

But it has also ushered in a far more democratic era, when the likes of Armagh and Tyrone won their first All-Irelands while the likes of Kildare, Donegal and Dublin all compete at the highest level.

Win or lose on the third Sunday in September, their ninth final in 12 years, this Kerry team’s place in history amongst the greatest sides ever to play the game is solidly cemented.

IT SEEMS that Pat McEnaney has refereed his last game at inter-county level.

He won’t be on duty for either of this month’s All-Ireland semi-finals and it’s highly unlikely that the Monaghan man will be given a swan-song in the final - that particular gig appears to be headed Joe McQuillan’s direction.

By the time next season starts McEnaney will have passed the 50-year-old age limit that the GAA imposes on elite referees.

So the All-Ireland quarter-final between Kerry and Limerick at Cork Park last month was the low-key conclusion to a career spent in the spotlight.

McEnaney, who took up the whistle when he blew out his knee playing soccer, was often held up as the best referee in the game and many players did, indeed, enjoy games that he took charge of.

Just as often as he won praise from players, managers and fans however he had officials in Croke Park pulling their hair out.

It was said that he applied ‘common sense’, with Kerry boss Jack O’Connor one of his biggest fans, though sometimes applying the rules is what’s required.

During last year’s hand-pass rule controversy it appeared at times as though he was operation from his own rulebook.

He first blasted to national prominence in the 1996 All-Ireland final when he was the man in the middle.

The Corduff club-man sent off Meath’s Colm O’Rourke and Liam McHale of Mayo - and he could have marched a dozen more - following an infamous brawl at the Hill 16 end of the ground.

He still cites that games as his most difficult, though it was an experience that stood to him as he went on to referee further All-Ireland finals and International Rules test series.

McEnaney himself backs the GAA’s 50-year rule and he will be the first really high profile casualty of the age limit.

It’s an admirable move by the Association as they aim to lower the age-profile of inter-county whistlers and change perceptions about them.

McEnaney will be missed however for his calm approach and no-nonsense manner.

His matter-of-fact views on football and the application of the rules though, could be the very thing that keeps him in the limelight into his retirement.

With so much uniformed comment by ‘experts’ and pundits it would be no surprise if he was snapped up as a rules analyst on television, radio or in print.

ULSTER BANK BLOG 2011 – 13

By PETER SWEENEY

THE race for Sam Maguire is now down to just four teams.

Dublin have shown the best form of them so far with their scintillating quarter-final win over Tyrone on Saturday, but in the 16th Man’s eyes Kerry remain the All-Ireland favourites.

They will be delighted that Cork are gone and they will have no fears about playing Mayo on Sunday week in the first of the two semi-finals. They have been there, done that and seen it all before.

They will also be smiling quietly to themselves at the swirl of hype that has been building up around the Dubs since the weekend as it takes much of the focus off them.

Here we profile the strengths and weaknesses of the semi-finalists and rank them in order from one to four.

1. KERRY
Strengths: This Kerry team has massive experience with last season the first time in seven years that they missed out on playing in the All-Ireland final. Knowing how to deal with the biggest occasions is an invaluable commodity.

Their forwards are also a major strength. Colm Cooper is set to explode in Croke Park following a relatively quiet season, adding further to the fire-power provided by Declan O’Sullivan and Darran O’Sullivan allied with the silk and steel of Paul Galvin.

Weaknesses: Midfield problems appear to be working themselves out, with Bryan Sheehan and Anthony Maher settling in well together and Seamus Scanlon to come in off the bench.

However, the defence must remain a worry for manager Jack O’Connor – particularly the central positions of centre-back and full-back.

2. DUBLIN
Strengths: Dublin are playing as the complete team – a ravenously hungry unit who are more than the sum of their parts. The defence is tight, with the addition of Cian O’Sullivan a plus, and the forwards are on song too.

The form of Paul Flynn at wing forward has been one of the biggest strengths this year and he could play himself into the Footballer of the Year reckoning with one more big performance.

Weaknesses: Getting carried away and failing to produce consistently – the same thing as always for Dublin. Pat Gilroy’s team now have to follow up a fine performance with another that’s good enough to break down Donegal.

The city will be going crazy and it will be hard for the manager to keep a lid on it.

3. MAYO
Strengths: The lack of expectation surrounding this team will please manager James Horan as it means that they can go out and play with no pressure – just as they did when they disposed of All-Ireland champions Cork.

Weaknesses: It remains to be seen whether Mayo have the iron-clad self-belief that the best teams possess and they are traditionally mentally brittle.  Their defence has yet to be fully tested yet too.

4. DONEGAL
Strengths: They have utter belief in manager Jim McGuinness and the system he has developed to get them this far. Ultra-difficult to break down and they have ball-winning scoring forwards at the other end.

Weaknesses: They haven’t played a Division 1 team yet this year and the Dubs will pose a completely new set of problems for them. If they fall behind against a top side they could find it hard to chase the game the way they are set up.

ALL-IRELAND SFC SEMI-FINALS
Sunday, August 21
Croke Park, 3.30, Kerry v Mayo

Sunday, August 28
Croke Park, 3.30, Dublin v Donegal

AS he made his speech having accepted the Liam MacCarthy Cup on the steps of the Hogan Stand on behalf of his Cork team, Sean Og O hAilpin spoke about the journey he had taken.

“Is fada an turas é ó Fiji go Corcaigh agus ó Corcaigh go Pairc an Chrocaigh,” he roared, speaking about his birth on the Pacific island of Fiji.

In terms of miles covered, Mayo’s footballers may not have come quite so far. But the journey they have taken over the past 12 months is none the less remarkable.

Their last three games of 2010 ended in defeat – each more crippling than the one before.

First was the League final dismantling by Cork in Croke Park. A loss in Connacht against Sligo followed before they were dumped out of the Championship entirely by Longford.

When they struggled to get past London in their first Championship game of this summer, only falling over the line after extra-time, it looked as though another agonising season was on the cards for players and fans alike.

Yet here they are – in an All-Ireland semi-final having beaten defending champions Cork at the weekend.

It’s a remarkable story and Sunday’s 1-13 to 2-6 win over the Rebels, when they limited their opponents to just a single second-half point, was the biggest shock we’ve seen in years.

Yet speaking to Mayo’s oh-so-calm manager James Horan it all seems perfectly logical. This team was always manned by good footballers so from there it was all about getting them playing with confidence and working hard.

That’s exactly what they did against Cork, building on workman-like second half performances in terrible conditions against Galway and Roscommon.

Before they met Cork the consensus was a brave display and something in the line of a four-point defeat wouldn’t be bad for Mayo and would leave them plenty to work on for 2012.

Now they look forward to an All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry, a team they blew up against twice in recent finals, and it’s hard to know what to hope for or expect.

They are a compact unit under Horan and certainly don’t look like the sort of team that will take tanking off anybody.

A narrow defeat would leave their pride intact and put them standing on solid foundations for the future. But losing would also end their involvement in what is turning into a wide-open season.

Winning, of course, would put them into the final and there’s a danger that the people of Mayo could lose the run of themselves again, which is never a good thing.

The journey this team has taken so far this year has been amazing and the next step they take will be fascinating to watch.

John Galvin has dedicated much of his life to Limerick football.

He tore his cruciate ligament earlier in the season and now he’s watching his team mates’ assault on the Championship from the sidelines.

His absence from this year’s provincial semi-final against Kerry merely rammed home the point that almost single-handedly he made Munster more than a two-horse race.

Last year through sheer force of will he nearly dragged Limerick to their first title down south since the 1800’s.

This year when the teams met, with Galvin in the stands, the gap had grown to eleven points. That just shows you how valuable he is to his team.

Then to add insult to injury last year his dream of playing Championship football in Croke Park was dashed when they were drawn against Cork in the final round of All-Ireland quarter-finals.

In 2011 the backdoor draw was kinder to Limerick and they steered their way past Waterford, Offaly and Wexford – all Division 3 and 4 opposition and now they are in an All-Ireland quarter-final.

True enough, they were given the toughest draw possible when they were paired with Sam Maguire favourites Kerry. But at least they have made the last eight and are getting the game they so desperately dreamed of at Headquarters.

And they will be doing so with their best player, one of the finest midfielders of his generation, throwing water bottles into his team mates during breaks in play.

Limerick aren’t the team they were last year and without Galvin they are unlikely to trouble the Kingdom.

They get their big chance on the big stage at precisely the time they are least able to take advantage of it. And what’s worse, a legend of the game doesn’t get the richly deserved chance to lead his team out onto Croke Park.

Meanwhile, Wexford too know a thing or two about the cruel nature of sport and they have been dealt two blows this year.

The first was their Leinster final defeat to Dublin in a game they really could have won.

And then they lost to Limerick in the most horrible of fashion on Saturday night, with Limerick being awarded a controversial injury-time winner.

One umpire waved it wide, one had his hand on the white flag and referee Derek Fahy allowed the score to stand.

The GAA’s ruling Central Council meet next month to discuss the use and implementation of Hawk-Eye score detection technology.

The sooner they install it all Championship matches the better because incidents like this cannot be allowed to continue.

THE GAA don’t do statues, but if they ever get around to erecting monuments to their greatest Mick O’Dwyer should be the first man cast in bronze.

The GAA tend to honour their heroes of the past by naming grounds, stands, cups and competitions after them.

In England, soccer clubs have gone the route of putting up statues of their greatest figures and the likes of Billy Shankly, Matt Busby, Brian Clough and Billy Bremner are all honoured in this way.

And Croke Park would do well to follow their example – starting with a big, permanent likeness of Mick O’Dwyer on the Jones Road.

Micko is often hailed as the greatest manager that the Association has even known.

Well, you could easily go one further and say that the Waterville Wizard is the greatest thing that ever happened to the GAA.

For 36 years and more he has prowled up and down the sidelines, following on from a brilliant career as a Kerry footballer – something that is often forgotten.

As a boss he led the Kingdom to eight All-Irelands and just as significantly he brought Kildare and Laois to Leinster titles.

He never got close to that with Wicklow, but he re-energised a Division 4 county and gave them the belief that they could live with the best.

At 75-years-old he is still able to motivate players nearly six decades his junior and there’s rarely an atmosphere at a Championship game like there is when Micko’s involved.

He has never been slow to criticise the GAA and this hasn’t always sat well with those at the top. Who knows, maybe this is the reason he was never given the one job he feels is missing from his CV – that of Ireland Internationals Rules manager.

Some people doubt that his motivations are always pure, but it’s an undeniable fact that Mick O’Dwyer is completely in love with and addicted to football.

He wants to manage an inter-county team again next year and there are plenty of counties out there who would do well to secure his services.

There’s no need to worry about his age – this man is full beans even after 75 years, over one third of the GAA’s 126-year history, at the top level.

After guiding his Wicklow side to an All-Ireland qualifier draw against Armagh at the Morgan Athletic Grounds last Saturday week he was on the first tee at a golf course in South Kerry at 7.0 the next morning when most of his players were still in bed.

This man has done more for the promotion of Gaelic Games than 100 full-time coaches could ever manage.

The GAA should get in touch with a good sculptor, get that statue up and have the man himself unveil it before it’s too late.

DUBLIN manager Pat Gilroy learned one important lesson in the Leinster final.

And it’s that he needs a Plan B for the days when Bernard Brogan isn’t shooting the lights out.

On Sunday Brogan kicked two quality points from play and added another from the only free he took.

For a mere mortal forward that would be a reasonable return, but the Footballer of the Year - and focus of Dublin’s - attack had a nightmare afternoon at Croke Park.

He kicked five wides, dropped a series of shots short to Wexford keeper Anthony Masterson and was even blocked down on a number of occasions.

On another day he could have finished with eight, nine or more points beside his name and the Dubs would have cruised to victory.

With him struggling however, the team as a unit struggled too.

The game plan involves getting men behind the ball, forcing the opposition into giving up the ball under pressure and then hitting Brogan.

In fairness, for the 60 minutes he was on the field before he was substituted he showed for the ball ever time.

But his radar was totally off, and credit also has to go to his marker Graeme Molloy for a job well done.

Diarmuid Connolly, the great hope for Dublin this season, didn’t shine and was taken off before half-time.

Eoghan O’Gara was improved, but had to go off injured and Tomas Quinn was taken off 33 minutes after being sent on.

Kevin McManamon made a difference, but if he starts in the All-Ireland quarter-finals it means there isn’t much of an impact to come off the bench.

Alan Brogan was by far the best of the Dublin attackers, but he is needed at centre forward while neither Paul Flynn nor Bryan Cullen, both brilliantly hard-working on the wings, are four-points-a-day men.

All-Ireland winning teams generally have more than one forward who can be relied on to do damage.

At the moment the Dubs only have Bernard Brogan - and as displayed on Sunday even he can have an off day.

If the Boys in Blue, Leinster Champions again for the sixth time in seven seasons, are to win Sam Maguire for the first time in 16 years Brogan is going to have to be in sensational form.

And he’s also going to need a little help from his team mates when it comes to getting the vital scores.

SO Kerry are Munster Champions again and Cork are back in the All-Ireland qualifiers.

Both teams were in the same position 12 months ago and it was the Rebels that ended up as All-Ireland champions.

Things are quite different now though.

In 2010 the Kingdom travelled to Croke Park without Tomas O Se and Paul Galvin, but this time the influential pair are on their way back from suspension and injury respectively.

Cork had the chance to find out much about themselves through three qualifier games last summer.

This year because they made the Munster final they only have one match to get things right before they land at Headquarters (which they will surely do).

Also there is the troubling injury to key forward Ciaran Sheehan, who could join Colm O’Neill on the list of long-term absentees.

Cork hammered Kerry for long stretches of the Munster final in Killarney on Sunday, but they had to work so hard to get their scores.

They also showed again that they are prone to let opponents build up big leads before they start playing their game - it happened again as they trailed the Kingdom by nine.

The reason that Jack O’Connor’s team are able to survive despite getting beaten up in midfield is because they have such good forwards.

Darran O’Sullivan and Declan O’Sullivan did the damage at the weekend. This meant Colm Cooper and Kieran Donaghy didn’t have to score heavily on the day.

O’Connor is as shrewd an operator as there is on the line and on the field he has clever footballers in all the key positions.

With O Se and Galvin to come back into the team they will be defensively stronger and have another option up front.

Even more importantly, they will have two of the best breaking ball winners in the game to firm up their challenge in the middle third.

Cork haven’t got the same level of natural ability, but they survive and thrive on athleticism and team work.

Both of these teams have games built for Croke Park and both of them now know how to win All-Irelands.

These age-old Munster rivals will have a major say in the destination of the Sam Maguire at the end of the season.

But it is a Kerry team written off more than once in the past who look in better shape to be climbing the steps of the Hogan Stand on the third Sunday in September.

ALMOST every Monday morning the referee is the story in the GAA.

In Croke Park Cormac Reilly was in the spotlight for awarding a late free which handed Dublin their Leinster semi-final win over Kildare.

Was it a free? Predictably both sides have different stories to tell.

The referee must have been pretty sure in his own mind to call a foul at such a crucial point, but what frustrates many people is that a bit of pulling and holding off the ball is almost always tolerated.

In Castlebar Rory Hickey let Mayo defender Keith Higgins off with a yellow card despite the fact that he clearly struck a Galway player - a red card offence.

In Clones Joe McQuillan gave Kevin Hughes from Tyrone two deserved yellow cards, but he let more than one player off without a warning for similar offences while Donegal’s Leo McLoone, like Higgins, had a lucky escape.

Any player will tell you what they want from a referee is consistency. If he makes the same calls throughout a match, no matter how odd, at least they know what to expect.

Consistency right across the board would be the ideal scenario, but it isn’t likely to happen.

The main problem facing the GAA is that referees are seen as fair game for anyone to have a go at once their team loses.

Kildare didn’t win at the weekend and Reilly is a handy scapegoat. But they should look first at themselves to find the reasons why they didn’t win a game despite playing more than 30 minutes with an extra man after Dublin’s Eoghan O’Gara was sent off.

The verbal abuse referees get from players, officials and supporters in club matches would make you wonder sometimes why they bother.

At inter-county level they are generally afforded much greater respect from those they share the field with, but people in the crowd believe that their ticket is a license to slander and defame the match official.

In the media, particularly on television, a referee’s performance is analysed right down to the smallest call.

Without referees the GAA wouldn’t exist, but attracting the right quality of candidate to take up the whistle is next to impossible because people don’t want to get involved.

Why would anyone want to leave themselves open that level of public scrutiny and abuse? In rugby, where the referee’s word is absolutely final, it wouldn’t be tolerated.

Many former players who would make brilliant refs never put their names forward for the role because of the stigma attached.

Until people learn to keep their mouths shut and respect referees this problem will remain. And as long as the problem continues consistency will never happen.

 

THE deep flaws in the GAA’s Football Championship structures come into stark focus this weekend.

Laois play their third game of the summer on Saturday and if they lose to Tipperary for the second year in succession their season is over.

Galway have yet to play a match in Championship 2011 and even if they lose to Mayo at McHale Park on Sunday they are guaranteed football into July.

How can it be fair that one team can play three games over the course of a month, winning one, and be eliminated before another has kicked a single ball in the same competition?

The answer is it cannot be fair.

The provincial championships have long since served their purpose for the GAA and it’s time for them either to be abolished or tied into a far more equitable system.

The reason that Galway have yet to play is that they are in the Connacht Championship, where one of the seven teams that take part is given a bye into a semi-final every season.

Laois are in 11-county Leinster and they started off in the first round, beating Longford, moved into the quarter-finals, losing to Dublin, and now they face Tipp again in a straight knock-out match

Cork and Kerry share the Munster Championship between them so as long as they are kept apart in the draw until the final they are as good as guaranteed of being in the final 12 every season.

To do that from Ulster this year Donegal will have to beat Antrim, Cavan and Tyrone. If they lose to the Red Hand County on Sunday they will have a further three games to win before they see Croke Park this year.

The inadequacies and inequities are everywhere to be seen and it’s time that Croke Park woke up and took a look at them.

Change moves slowly in the GAA and the time has long since passed for them to take action on this subject.

*The GAA’s decision to reduce all ticket prices for All-Ireland qualifiers, quarter-finals and semi-finals is a commendable one.

However, their insistence that they have no control over the prices set by provincial councils for their matches around the country is a complete abdication of responsibility.

True, provincial councils set their own entry fees and they set their own budgets, but ultimately they have to answer to Croke Park.

This year it was as much as €30 into some first round matches around the country and in this day and age that’s simply too much.

ALMOST unnoticed outside of the west Fergal O’Donnell has turned Roscommon into a competitive team with a chance of breaking into the top eight.

The Rossies made the All-Ireland quarter-finals last year and they put in a creditable showing against eventual champions Cork.

And they are a great bet to return to Croke Park again this summer as they remain on track to put together back-to-back Connacht titles for the first time in 20 years.

O’Donnell has been central to most of Roscommon’s success for the past decade and more.

He was captain when they won the Nestor Cup in 2001 and the 39-year-old was in charge when the minors won a historic All-Ireland title, beating Kerry after an epic replay in Ennis five years ago.

There was a huge groundswell of local opinion behind him when John Maughan walked away as acrimony in 2009 and he took the job even though it was hardly a plum appointment at the time.

Things didn’t start well for him either, with his first Connacht Championship game as a boss ending in an embarrassing and humbling 20-point defeat to Mayo at McHale Park.

But within 12 months Roscommon were Connacht champions and the 12/1 they were quoted at just a few weeks ago to retain their crown now looks like tremendous value with Sligo and Leitrim eliminated and both Mayo and Galway apparently in crisis.

There is a new breed of progressive young managers around the country, with the likes Kieran McGeeney, James McCartan, Jim McGuinness and Justin McNulty the poster boys for this movement.

But the quietly spoken Boyle-based garda is proving himself to be at the head of this pack.

When he took over Rossies were just hoping that he would put to an end the crises that dogged the county’s footballers and bring them back to respectability.

The Roscommon Gaels man though has gone much further. He has infused his young team with confidence and they play with serious togetherness.

O’Donnell has enough quality footballers to build a good side around, from Geoffrey Claffey in goals to Senan Kilbride at full forward. Peter Domincan, Donie Shine, Seanie McDermott and Karol Mannion would walk into most teams.

They won promotion to Division 3 for next season, but they are an outfit capable of living at a much higher level.

A second consecutive All-Ireland quarter-final appearance shouldn’t be beyond them this year and could be just another step on an upward ascent.

And with the big two in Connacht apparently facing into periods of transition Roscommon could enjoy some time in the sun.

PAT Spillane coined the phrase ‘puke football’ in 2003 when Tyrone beat his beloved Kerry in an All-Ireland semi-final.

Pat was wrong because while the game Tyrone were playing at the time was highly tactical and involved every player on the field defending when they hadn’t got the ball, it was extremely attractive and entertaining.

Mickey Harte might not have sent out a team to stand in their traditional positions to play 15 v 15 and he certainly didn’t encourage anyone to let the ball into the forwards early just for the sake of it.

But there was much to admire in the way they went about winning games, and three All-Ireland titles.

Plenty of other teams have adapted similar tactics to varying degrees of success, with Dublin taking it to an absolute maximum last year when they got 14 men behind the ball and, in the quarter-final, let Tyrone win each of their kick-outs uncontested.

It was certainly different to watch, but there was still much to admire as the Dubs hit on the break, moving the ball swiftly and running up some big scoring totals.

Puke football does exist however and Laois were the culprits in Croke Park last Sunday.

It’s unclear exactly how they intended to win their Leinster quarter-final against Dublin with the tactics they employed.

Manager Justin McNulty got his team back into Division 1 of the Football League in his first season in charge and that is to be applauded.

But as long as he persists with the tactics he has employed so far this year further progress doesn’t look likely. And Laois aren’t alone – there are plenty of other teams doing the same thing.

There’s no point in getting nearly every player to track back and defend if there’s no clear policy for what to do when they have the ball.

Laois set out not to lose a game on Sunday. In soccer it was the equivalent of playing for a nil-all draw, but zero-zero scorelines don’t happen in Gaelic football.

It was 14 minutes before they managed their first shot at the target, 16 minutes before they registered a score 19 were gone by the time they got their opening point from play.

And once the game started to get away from them they didn’t deviate from the game-plan, making a heavy defeat not just a likelihood, but an absolute certainty.

Crowds are down in the early rounds of the Championship and it’s hardly surprising. It’s difficult to believe that anyone would want to pay €30 to watch football that dull and lacking ambition.

Thankfully, any team playing like this won’t last long into the summer and there is still entertainment to be had.

LOVE them or hate them, Dublin bring a bit of Hollywood to Gaelic football.

They are the game’s blue chip franchise, drawing in the crowds, sparking debate and inspiring devotion and derision in equal measure (sometimes from their owns fans in a single afternoon).

In Bernard Brogan they finally have a player again that embodies what the Dubs are supposed to be all about. A bit of glamour, some swagger and more than enough skill to back it up.

There’s no doubt that Pat Gilroy’s team are All-Ireland contenders, even though recent events may not have helped their cause.

Losing to Cork in the Football League Division 1 final at the end of May having held an eight-point lead during the second half is sure to have dented confidence.

Brogan is as good a forward as there has been in the game in a long, long time.

But when he went off injured against the Rebels the team lost their shape and direction, showing up an alarming reliance on the current Footballer of the Year.

Gilroy too has a lot of selection headaches before Sunday’s Leinster quarter-final against Laois at Croke Park.

Has Rory O’Carroll got enough football under his belt to start at fullback? If he hasn’t who will play at the edge of the square?

Is there room for Alan Brogan in the attack after he missed out on the League final due to suspension? Will Barry Cahill partner Michael Darragh Macauley in midfield? And there are many more.

They are on the tougher side of the Leinster draw, but they are more than good enough to make the All-Ireland quarter-finals and the football only really starts on the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Where it goes from there is anyone’s guess. If someone could knock Cork out for them it could be a very long way indeed.

They are in an elite band of teams alongside the Rebels, Kerry and Tyrone, who are all in action this weekend. They are built to play in Croke Park, with the size and pace to make that big pitch look small.

They have a proven match-winner in Bernard Brogan and whenever he is on the field they will have a chance.

If Diarmuid Connolly can step up his game and become the top-class target man that he has the potential to be it will form another vital piece of the jigsaw.

Self-belief now is probably the biggest single issue they have to address and that is not easy to do.

Cork, Kerry and Tyrone all have the iron-clad will that comes with winning All-Ireland and breaking into that golden circle is going to be difficult for Dublin.

WHAT goes around, comes around. And Meath are finding this out now.

Few people in the Royal County really enjoyed the way they won last year’s Leinster title, but many were happy to hang on to the trophy given the nine year gap back to their previous provincial win.

The right thing to do would have been to offer Louth a replay, a rematch that Meath would most likely have won under the circumstances.

Instead, they pushed on leaving most observers of the opinion that the Wee County were the rightful Leinster champions, with Joe Sheridan’s late goal robbing them of their moment of glory.

And since then Meath have had little joy.

In their very next game they were tanked by neighbours Kildare in the All-Ireland quarter-final. They started well, but for most of the match they played like a team weighed down by the controversy of the previous weeks.

Just a few short months later manager Eamonn O’Brien was shown the door.

It was a shock move at the time, though it was clearly a manifestation at the discontent clubs felt over the county board’s handling of the Leinster final mess. O’Brien was merely an unfortunate casualty.

The process to find his successor was far from clean and clinical, with Seamus ‘Banty’ McEnaney finally emerging as the last man standing. But the appointment of an outside manager didn’t sit well with everyone in a county so rooted in tradition.

So now Banty, the genial Monaghan man with no ties to last year’s Leinster final, finds himself in possibly the hottest seat in the GAA right now.

After a shocking League campaign he gambled big by bringing 38-year-old Graham Geraghty back into the panel after a three-year absence from inter-county football.

The stakes would have been even higher had fullback Darren Fay accepted a similar invitation and perhaps McEnaney should be thankful that the 35-year-old former All Star turned him down.

Neither of these moves met with the full approval of selectors Liam Harnan and Barry Callaghan and over the weekend both of them withdrew their services in frustration at their lack of input into team affairs.

Banty is back to his preferred two-man backroom team of Paul Grimley and Martin McElkennon, but he hasn’t reached this point in a manner of his choosing.

His future could now hang on as flimsy a thread as the outcome Sunday week’s Leinster quarter-final against Kildare.

Anything less than a win could see him sent on his way by clubs eager to flex their muscles again. The latest chapter in the ongoing fallout from last year’s Leinster final.

LISTENING to the Sunday Game at the weekend football fans could be forgiven for turning off their televisions for the summer.

There was the annual debate about the standard of football, the use of blanket defenses and the need for rule changes to introduce more attacking play.

All of this is based on a single Ulster preliminary round game, which, admittedly, was pretty awful.

But Ulster first round games – and it’s the same in every province – are generally of a fairly low standard.

What the experts seem to forget is that Championship 2010 was the very best in living memory, with epic games all over the country, amazing individual performances and shocks results right across the boards.

And while this summer may not live up to those particularly high standards, there is still so much to look forward to.

Pat Spillane can give out about the standard of the modern game all he wants, but in doing so he ignores what is great about Gaelic football today.

When has there ever been forwards of the class of Bernard Brogan, Colm Cooper and Benny Coulter all playing at the same time?

How often have we seen defenders as good as Marc and Tomas O Se, Charlie Harrison, Michael Shields and Karl Lacey all trying to stop them?

There may not be as much high fielding in the game as there once was, but Aidan Walsh seems capable of reviving the traditional art all on his own.

In the supposed golden era of football in the late seventies and early eighties there were only three counties, Kerry, Dublin and Offaly, with a prayer of winning an All-Ireland.

Last year Cork finally got there, but Dublin, Kerry, Tyrone, Down and Kildare all harboured realistic hopes of landing Sam Maguire. And each of them will be the same this summer.

The standard of football now is higher than it has ever been.

It is a completely different game of course, with the emphasis on possession, containment and hand-passing. Players too are fitter and able to motor around the field for 70 minutes, giving and taking shuddering hits.

Too much is read into many of the drab early round games between teams with no chance of making any impression on the Championship. Fifteen years ago these games weren’t broadcast live so most people never got a chance to see how bad they were.

But when the All-Ireland quarter-finals on the August Bank Holiday Weekend roll around there will be only eight top teams packed with serious operators left standing. It’s going to be great!

TEAMS and players don’t always get what they deserve out of sport.

But on Sunday old soldiers like John Miskella, Graham Canty and Nicholas Murphy got their reward.

Between them they learned about All-Ireland final heartache with a combined eight losses stretching back to 1999.

The three of them have had seasons ruined by injury and only Miskella was fit enough to start and finish at the weekend.

The elation at winning as incredible, but for them it would have been tempered by the knowledge that Anthony Lynch didn’t even make the bench.

Their fellow elder-statesman has hardly kicked a ball all year due to fitness problems and he wasn’t included in the panel.

Yesterday’s All-Ireland final win was his as much as anyone else’s for all the work he has put in since his debut in 1999

For youngsters like Ciaran Sheehan and Aidan Walsh, both hugely talented and both just out of their teens, winning an All-Ireland must seem like the most natural thing in the world.

But for Cork’s veterans doubts must have been creeping into their minds as they slipped five behind a confident Down team with half-time fast approaching.

Miskella could have been taken off following some wild shooting, but manager Conor Counihan left him be and he delivered after the break.

And the introduction of Murphy for the start of the second half and Canty six minutes later swung the contest for the Rebels.

Murphy started the rout of Down in the middle of the park, which was continued by Walsh, and he was dominant in the 30 minutes he lasted before injury got the better of him again.

Canty offered calmness, experience and drive to the halfback line and it was fitting that he was the man who went up the steps of the Hogan Stand to accept the Sam Maguire.

He is the heartbeat of this team and after the game he enjoyed a few laughs with hurling goalkeeper Donal Og Cusack, another hugely focused sportsman, at the victory banquet at the Burlington Hotel.

Cork mightn’t be the easiest team to love and certainly the football they played this year wasn’t always the easiest to watch.

But they finally got the best out of themselves when it counted most - in the second half of the All-Ireland final.

Hard work, commitment and talent aren’t always rewarded in sport, but yesterday Cork got what they deserved.

WHATEVER happens in this weekend’s All-Ireland final, it will bring down the curtain on what has been the best Championship in living memory.

Every summer starts with hand-wringing about the standard of football and the direction the game is going.

This year we had the added bonus of weeks arguing over the implementation of the new hand-pass rule, which caused distress for players, fans, referees and managers.

But when people look back on Season 2010 they will see a magnificent collection of matches, brilliant scores and outstanding individual performances.

And there was tactical innovation too, with Dublin deciding to go ultra-defensive and it nearly worked.

Just because the Dubs ceded possession to the opposition and got bodies behind the ball doesn’t mean that their games were dull or boring though.

Ultra-intense Championship games are always enthralling and with Footballer of the Year-elect Bernard Brogan on the field there is going to be fireworks.

We will have a name other than Kerry or Tyrone inscribed on the Sam Maguire for the first time since 2001.

Of course, Cork have been here before but this season has seen the emergence of a new order in football.

Down sprung from nowhere to reach the All-Ireland final; riding their luck, benefiting from the draw in the qualifiers and beating the All-Ireland champions.

The believe themselves to be aristocrats of the game, which they are, and they have played with sometimes regal disposition.

Sligo’s wins over Mayo and Galway were breathtaking and any disappointment that they couldn’t finish the job off in the Connacht final was quickly swept away on an emotional tide of Roscommon joy.

The heartbreak of Limerick and Monaghan in their provincial finals left their fans raw, but added to the narrative of an incredible season.

Controversy too, adds to the summer and there was plenty of it even after the hand pass debate had largely gone away.

Meath’s Leinster final win over Louth, a team that captured everyone’s hearts, shouldn’t have happened.

But it did and no one did anything to change it. The row rumbled on for a week and in the end, months later, it played a part in Eamonn O’Brien’s removal as Royal County boss by clubs angry at not being given a say in the matter by the board at the time.

This season will be long remembered as one of the best of all time. Wouldn’t it be nice if, on Sunday, it was capped off with a classic All-Ireland final?

NO one can do All-Ireland semi-final heartbreak quite like the Dubs.

Mayo might self-harm in All-Ireland finals in the most spectacular of fashions, but its Dublin fans who know the heartbreak of semi-finals.

Since 2002 the Boys in Blue have been to the second last fence on four occasions. There have been four agonising defeats by a combined total of five points.

In ’02 Ray Cosgrove hit the post with the last kick of the game and Armagh squeezed into the final by a single point.

In ’06 they blew a seven-point second half lead against Mayo to lose by one. 12 months later two points was the margin against Kerry.

And yesterday, after dominating the game and leading for 68 minutes, they let another invitation to the big dance in September slip through their fingers.

Credit must go to Cork for sticking to their task in a game they looked set to be rubbed out of for long periods.

But it will take Dublin a long time to get over this one.

Before the match, manager Pat Gilroy spoke about being in ‘bonus territory’, but this was just a screen to deflect as much pressure as possible away from his team.

Gilroy and his players will know that they are unlikely to get a better chance of winning Sam Maguire than they had this year.

Kerry were beaten, they knocked Tyrone out and Cork were stuttering through the season.

Momentum was behind them and the fans had finally returned to Hill 16.

Gilroy will be content with 2010 on many fronts - he has rebuilt a team, found a few new players and hit upon a system that masks many of his side’s short-comings.

Progress has definitely been made, but there’s no guarantee that Dublin will be back in an All-Ireland semi-final again any time soon.

Tommy Lyons was in charge in 2002. It was his first season in the job and even amidst the heartbreak of that defeat to Armagh, there was optimism for the future.

But Lyons never again managed to steer his side to a Leinster title. His time as Dublin manager ended in acrimony and boos and fans spitting at him as he left the field.

There’s no one predicting that anything similar awaits Gilroy, but it illustrates how things can go wrong.

When the dust settles on Sunday’s loss to Cork, the size of the opportunity lost will live with Dublin’s footballers.

WELCOME to the build-up to what will unquestionably be the most anticipated game of the year.

Dublin against Cork in next Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final has been 15 years in the making.

The last time these teams clashed in the Championship was the 1995 semi-final which the Dubs won on the way to their most recent Sam Maguire triumph.

That was payback for their ’89 semi reverse against the Rebels. Cork won that year too and though they retained Sam in 1990 they haven’t been back in the winners’ enclosure since.

This is a meeting of the two biggest cities on the island – the actual capital against the real capital. But it also a meeting between two success starved sides who have only one All-Ireland apiece in 20 years.

Cork are favourites, but that’s courtesy of their performances last season and during the National League rather than anything they have done this summer.

They have yet to deliver a single outstanding display since April and few of their leading lights have shone.

Few people, not even the players and management, expected Dublin to still be standing at this late stage of the campaign. But here they are, thanks to their ultra-intense win over Tyrone last month.

That was the Boys in Blues’ first win over a leading county since they lowered the Red Hand’s colours in the ’95 final.

It was probably the best team performance of the summer, but no one is getting too carried away because Dublin have let their supporters down once too often in the past.

Against the Tyrone in the quarter-final, the Dubs defended from deep and allowed their opponents to win every single one of their own kick-outs in the fullback or halfback lines.

They may well try this again on Sunday, but Cork have the size and the strength that Tyrone lacked to kick long and trust that they can contest around the middle third.

As the Rebels proved last year too, also against Mickey Harte’s team, they can ratchet up the intensity and they have the physical attributes to break tackles and turn the ball over.

This negates a lot of what Dublin have going for them, but there is the small matter of Bernard Brogan – the in form footballer in the country.

Cork are likely to put Michael Shields on him and don’t be surprised to see an extra man screening the fullback line just to be sure.

This has been a brilliant summer so far for Gaelic football and Sunday could be its crowning glory. At the moment it looks advantage Cork.

CORK may have been the least impressive of the four winning quarter-finalists, but they are the only team still in the competition that are under pressure to deliver.

Down, Dublin and Kildare are all in bonus territory. Cork by contrast are even money favourites to take Sam Maguire and anything less would have devastating results for them.

They have been knocking on the door of an All-Ireland for five years. If they win in September it may well be the start of a new era of Rebel dominance in football.

By contrast, if they lose it would most likely mark the end of this team.

The likes of Graham Canty, Paudie Kissane, Nicholas Murphy and John Miskella are all approaching the ends of their careers.

Another crushing defeat would surely send them into retirement and leave the Rebels facing a massive rebuilding project.

Last year’s All-Ireland final reverse against Kerry was a near-terminal blow and they have done well to bounce back as far as they have.

But winning Sam is the only option for them this year and that knowledge can strangle even the best of players.

So far this year they have been playing like a team with the burden of expectation weighing heavily on them.

They should have put Kerry away in both the Munster semi-final draw and replay given the amount of possession that they won in the middle of the field.

But sticking the ball over the bar has been a problem throughout this season, with manager Conor Counihan struggling to find his best combination up front.

He can’t find the right centre forward, Ciaran Sheehan’s development hasn’t come along as he would have wished while Daniel Goulding and Colm O’Neill haven’t found their 2009 form yet.

As a unit they played sensational football throughout 2009, peaking during the All-Ireland semi-final win over Tyrone and the first half of the final against Kerry.

They stopped playing in the second half of the decider and they haven’t approached those heights since.

Against Roscommon on Sunday they couldn’t get any sort of groove and they actually trailed at one stage in the second half before they finished strongly.

Cork’s semi-final against Dublin on August 22 will be fascinating. The clash of these two is always something special, as it was in 1983, 1989 and 1995.

The Rebels haven’t got the biggest football following and the Dubs’ fans deserted them for much of the summer, but tickets will be precious commodities for this one.

THE GAA staunchly refuse to do away with their provincial championships, yet they continue to undermine them thanks to their All-Ireland qualifier structures.

The simple fact of the matter is this – the further a team goes in their province before being beaten, the worse the chances of them progressing through the backdoor.

Teams that exit Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster early generally have a few weeks to lick their wounds and get their heads around the All-Ireland qualifiers.

If they get the kind of draw they all hope for it gives them the chance to build up a head of steam and by the time the fourth round comes along they are being propelled by serious momentum.

The qualifiers were first introduced in 2001 and in the ten seasons since then only 14 out of 40 beaten provincial finalists, just over one in three, have managed to bounce back and take advantage of their second chance.

Last year only Kildare of the beaten provincial finalists made it to the All-Ireland quarter-final and this year none of the big-game losers managed to rebound. Limerick got the closest when they forced Cork to extra-time.

Perhaps the cruellest twist of all saw Sligo and Monaghan pushed back into action just six days after morale crushing final defeats.

Both counties had put everything into winning domestic silverware but lost in depressing circumstances.

And then less than a week later they were asked to go out and perform against teams that had put together qualifier runs.

Sligo fell to Down, who had two games behind them, while Kildare were in action for the fifth weekend in-a-row when they dispatched Monaghan.

A clearly frustrated Yeats County manager Kevin Walsh called the system ‘total crap’ on Saturday night and Down boss James McCartan admitted that they had’ taken advantage of the situation’.

Certainly, it’s hard to work out how Connacht, with the second smallest number of competing counties started their provincial schedule before anyone else but were still the last to complete their competition.

It’s inescapable that the teams who are given their second chances earlier make a better fist of the qualifiers.

For some years the GAA had a rule allowing beaten provincial finalists a minimum 13 days to recover before entering the qualifiers but that was done away with as the fixture calendar became ever-more crowded.

The provincial competitions aren’t going anywhere so the sooner Croke Park restore some degree of protection to teams that go further in their home championships the better.

THIS time last year Tyrone left Ulster full of hope and as provincial champions.

Fast forward 12 months and they have hung on to the Anglo Celt Cup for the first time since 1995-’96 and they look to be in even better nick.

But it’s best to remember that in between these two domestic triumphs they were blown away by Cork in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final.

The Rebels are the biggest, strongest and most athletic team that Gaelic Games has ever produced and they were able to tear Tyrone’s defensive blanket to shreds in the first half.

And once they had Alan O’Connor sent off before the break they were happy to settle into their own pattern of containment, with the then-All-Ireland champions unable to come up with any answers.

So, has anything changed since then?

Well, Tyrone certainly look better equipped for the challenge and what’s sure is they still exist inside the Big Three. If they are to end up beaten this summer it will take Cork or Kerry to do it.

On the three occasions they have come into the Championship defending Sam Maguire they have struggled, with last year’s semi-final showing by far the best they have managed.

So Mickey Harte’s veterans have had a season to get their hunger back and that can be no bad thing.

The older stagers such as Conor Gormley, Ryan McMenamin and Brian Dooher all look to be in good fettle and they are all injury free. If Stephen O’Neill can keep himself right between now and September it would be a massive boost.

Joe McMahon is playing his way into Footballer of the Year territory with his displays of pure footballing ability as spare man in defence and Sean Cavanagh appears to be winding himself up for a few big days at Croke Park – the arena he loves best.

The spread of scorers Tyrone had in the Ulster final – ten of the starting team in all – is simply incredible and shows that this team is packed with ball players and the threat comes from everywhere.

Added to that Harte has found a few new gems like Cathal McCarron and Peter Harte.

Tyrone haven’t gone away, you know.

*PS The days of Ulster being considered the strongest of the four provinces in football are behind us.

On Saturday Armagh and Derry bombed against Leinster opponents and Tyrone strolled to victory in the final over a Monaghan team who only managed seven points across the 70 minutes.

Of course, it remains competitive and will always be a tough province to win but it is no longer head and shoulders above the rest.

WHAT could have been the best good-news story in the GAA this year quickly turned into the biggest controversy of the decade.

Louth were within seconds of a fairytale first Leinster title in 53 years at Croke Park yesterday.

But they were robbed by a goal that shouldn’t have been with what was literally the last throw of the dice from Meath.

Joe Sheridan, one of the most talented forwards in the game, placed the ball over the line in his desperation to rescue a seemingly lost situation.

Referee Martin Sludden – and more importantly, his umpires who were right on the scene – allowed the ‘goal’ to stand and the Royals were crowned champions.

What happened after the final whistle was completely unacceptable with Sludden jostled and hit by outraged Louth fans.

He was left to fend for himself for far too long by gardai and stewards and there were very real fears that he was going to get seriously roughed up before he got off the field.

A steward was knocked to the ground with a bottle thrown from the crowd amid scenes that do the GAA no good.

In fact, it’s the worst exposure the Association has had since 2001 when delegates missed the vote on opening Croke Park to soccer and rugby, thus keeping the gates closed for another few years.

Three things have to happen and they must happen quickly for the GAA to regain its moral standing.

The first is that a replay has to be ordered because it is hard to think of a worse call deciding such an important sporting occasion in Ireland. Thierry Henry would have blushed.

Secondly the GAA have to finally embrace video technology when it comes to controversial scores.

Had Sludden, or a Television Match Official as in rugby, had the chance to watch a replay straight after the incident there’s a high likelihood that a free out would have been awarded and that Louth would have been bringing the Delaney Cup back across the Boyne Bridge in triumph.

Thirdly, those who ran onto the pitch and physically confronted the referee have to be identified, prosecuted and banned from all GAA activity for life.

A strong message must be sent out that there is no place in sport or wider society for violence.

Unfortunately, the third of these is the only one likely to be acted upon.

The power to offer a replay is entirely in Meath’s hands and the sounds coming out of the Royal County on the Sunday night weren’t very conciliatory.

As for video technology, the GAA are no closer than FIFA to embracing the future.

THE fate of Kerry’s once promising season could now hang on a single decision from Croke Park’s secretive Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC).

Following their performances against Cork in the early rounds of the Munster Championship, the Kingdom were hot favourites to retain their All-Ireland crown.

They displayed once again that they were the best football team in the country and that it would be something out of the ordinary to stop them.

Well, now that something out of the ordinary appears to be happening.

First they lost current Footballer of the Year Paul Galvin to an eight-week suspension that rules him out of manager Jack O’Connor’s plans until after the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

And now they face the prospect of seeing Tomas O Se joining him in the stands in Croke Park on the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Tomas mixed the brilliant with the inexplicable in last Sunday’s thrilling three-point Munster final win over Limerick.

He showed with his two points galloping forward from wingback why he was a predecessor of Galvin’s as a Footballer of the Year.

But he also displayed a cranky side when he got involved in a number of incidents, none of which were punished by referee Pat Fox.

Once the Sunday Game highlighted these flash-points, particularly an off-the-ball elbow to a Limerick player, it became almost inevitable that the CCCC will look into the matter.

If, as expected, they do, this could leave O Se facing a four-week ban and the prospect of missing out on the All-Ireland quarter-final.

Having Tomas and Galvin suspended would leave Kerry without two of their top five footballers and their two best ball winners on the ground. With the Kingdom midfield misfiring so badly, they need this type of player to get onto the all-important breaks.

From All-Ireland favourites, the Kingdom would turn into something altogether more vulnerable over that one weekend.

They have to wait another three weeks before they find out who they play in the quarter-finals, but the line-up is potentially gruesome for O’Connor and his team.

Last year they were lucky with the draw they got in their own backdoor odyssey, with three Division 4 outfits, followed by a badly mis-firing Dublin side once they got to Croke Park.

If their luck holds they could find themselves up against someone like Roscommon or even Offaly, Waterford or another lower tier team.

But the chances are they’re more likely to come across Cork, Monaghan or Tyrone – not the sort of opposition they’d want with two top performers out of action.

IN AN All-Ireland race that is the widest open in years, Meath now have to be considered genuine Sam Maguire contenders.

Most of the pre-season money was wagered on Cork, Kerry and Tyrone.

The Rebels are back down at the foot of the mountain however and facing a long route through the qualifiers to get back to Croke Park.

Kerry are undoubtedly the best team in the country - but only so long as Paul Galvin is on the field and he is out for their next two games at least so there’s no guarantee that he will be able to make his return in the semi-finals.

Tyrone are ticking over nicely, but they were at this stage last year too only to be rumbled when the intensity ratcheted up a level or two at Headquarters.

So there’s nothing too frightening out there for teams that were considered outside of the top three - and that includes Meath.

The Royals have had a talented set of forwards for a number of years who have produced the occasional sensational performance. This summer they are all bang in form at the same time, as their five goals through four different players against Dublin last Sunday attests.

Goals win games and Meath’s attack knows where the net is - raising the green flag is always on the minds of Joe Sheridan, Cian Ward and Stephen Bray.

Their midfield wasn’t fantastic against the Dubs, but Nigel Crawford is set to return for the Leinster final against Louth on Sunday week.

It was feared that a bulging disk in his back would end his season so having him in the middle of the field again will be a huge boost to manager Eamonn O’Brien.

Crawford is the only players still active in Leinster with an All-Ireland medal and he’s also the only Meath man to have played in - and won - a senior provincial final before so his experience is invaluable.

The main worry about O’Brien’s team surrounded their defence, but in their last two games - against the Dubs and the replayed win over Laois - they have been water-tight.

The return of Kevin Reilly to full-back following a year out through injury has helped. In the corners Chris O’Connor is an able man-maker and Eoghan Harrington produced a great display last Sunday.

Another major plus for them is the fact that Meath expect to win - pressure doesn’t get to them, expectation doesn’t phase them and big-name opposition doesn’t frighten them.

So the Royals are back and it has made the summer even more interesting.

DUBLIN’S five-year strangle-hold on the Leinster Senior Football Championship is likely to be broken at Croke Park next weekend.

The Dubs haven’t been beaten by a team from the province since Westmeath pulled off a shock on June 6, 2004.

But all good things must come to an end and on Sunday the Dubs appear to be heading towards an unhappy ending.

And it’s not as if they aren’t well warned. Their performance against Wexford in the Leinster quarter-final was as poor as a Dublin team have produced in living memory.

Meath needed a replay to see off a flaky Laois team on their side of the draw and the Royals have injury problems. But they do have excellent forwards, they have no fear of the sky blue jersey and they are due one over their neighbours.

The Dublin-Meath rivalry is one of the spiciest in the GAA, but the men from the capital have had it all their own way for much of the past decade. In fact the Royals haven’t come out on top since 2001 and in that time they have drawn once and been beaten four times.

Goalkeeper Paddy O’Rourke is suspended following his red card at the weekend, but this opens the way up for the excellent Brendan Murphy between the posts. Injury will probably keep Mark Ward and Mickey Burke out too, but there are adequate replacements there.

So, will the Dubs be as bad as they were the last day? Probably not. The pertinent question though, is, how much can they improve?

Last Sunday week was a near-disaster and only for Wexford tied up completely they would have been out of the Championship.

Players looked lost in the defensive system they were trying to play and manager Pat Gilroy had to turn to players many people had forgotten about to rescue the situation.

The signs aren’t great. They will be better but given their last two Croke Park performances (and let’s not forget last year’s 17-point defeat to Kerry) hopes cannot be high.

And if the Royals do come out on top, expect there to be blood.

In 2008 Paul Caffrey fell on his sword following defeat to Tyrone and last August’s mauling by the Kingdom ended the inter-county football careers of Ciaran Whelan, Shane Ryan and Jason Sherlock for various reasons.
Gilroy knows that defeat will cause the house to fall in around him and picking up the pieces this season will not be an easy task.

WHEN Kerry hammered Dublin by 17 points in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final it was written off as a bad day at the office for the Dubs.

Sure, the Kingdom were always going to win the game - no matter what the hype about the Boys in Blue might have suggested - but 17 points was surely flattering. No?

Well, it turns out that 1-24 to 1-7, a joint Championship record gap between the teams, wasn’t in any way misleading.

On Sunday for the second summer game in succession the Dubs stunk up Croke Park in the first half.

Against Wexford they were clueless and leaderless for alarmingly long stretches. In the first 35 minutes they only managed two points, which is one less than they shot in the Kerry match before the break.

Around the same time as this latest Headquarters howler Kerry were putting together a marvellous, gutsy come-from-behind win over Cork, the team that many people were tipping to take Sam Maguire this year.

The All-Ireland champions may indeed be coming to the end of a glorious cycle, with five defenders on the wrong side of the 30-mark, but they are still burning bright.

So long as Paul Galvin remains involved throughout the season (though this is a big ‘if’ following a clash with the Rebels’ Eoin Cadogan highlighted on the Sunday Game at the weekend) there isn’t another team to touch them this year.

Cork are lacking the killer instinct and a forward approaching the quality of Colm Cooper to keep the scoreboard ticking over even when things aren’t going well.

It would be a truly enormous achievement for Tyrone to win back the All-Ireland after a two year break with a team still leaning on veteran warriors like Brian Dooher, Ryan McMenamin and Conor Gormley.

Mayo have fallen off the map, Galway will be worrying more about Sligo than booking hotel rooms in Citywest for September and outside of that the chasing pack disappear into the distance.

And the chasing pack is just where Dublin find themselves.

Manager Pat Gilroy said before the start of the season that his team were unlikely to win an All-Ireland this year and how right he was. The worry is that his three-year building project may not produce anything of lasting value either.

It seems as though he has finally sorted out his fullback line, but the midfield is non-existent.

The defensive system he tried during the League worked on smaller, slower pitches, but in Croke Park last Sunday players didn’t seem to know their roles. There were bodies behind the ball alright, but it didn’t prevent Wexford from scoring.

And put simply, Kerry just have better footballers than the rest.

Near the end of normal time in Sunday’s game Paul Flynn had a chance to play Bernard Brogan in for the winner but his 30-yard foot pass floated towards Wexford keeper Anthony Masterson. Had it been Declan O’Sullivan or Paul Galvin loading the bullets the pass would have been right on the money.

Brogan didn’t have his best day, kicking seven wides along with 2-4, but Gilroy should be praying that he doesn’t get injured or red carded any time soon.