DUBLIN AND TYRONE kicked 35 points between them in the Division 1 league final last month with the Dubs prevailing narrowly by a point at the end of an exciting clash.

Galway and Cork served up a brilliantly entertaining All-Ireland U21 final last Saturday in the Gaelic Grounds with the Tribesmen winning by 1-14 to 1-11.

So do these clashes mean we’re in store for a summer of open and attacking football?

Not necessarily say two current inter-county managers with Roscommon’s John Evans and Galway’s Alan Mulholland adopting a more cautious attitude.

Roscommon manager John Evans and Galway manager Alan Mulholland
Pic: INPHO/James Crombie

John Evans

“I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. When the league final was over, I turned to my son Cian and he said to me that was a refreshing game of football. ‘Mind it’ I said ‘it could be the last game of football you see for the year’.

“There is too much at stake. It is partly because you get your most physical, strongest, fittest team together. You have to be defence-minded, you have to be calculating in your attacks. It is not win at all costs but it certainly changes the nature of the game.

“I am not being totally negative when I say that may have been the last game of football but at the same time the free-flowing element of it may be curtailed somewhat.

“I have been asked a good few times (what to change about the game) and I have changed over the years, from pick-up to the high catch. But I think the referees are coming under unnecessary criticism and I would be in favour of something that would support them.

Alan Mulholland

“The minor and under-21 grades are different to senior football. A couple of years ago when we won it before in Croke Park it was open football. There was a big clamour of ‘that’s how Galway should play’

“I think Jim Gavin is trying to play a kind of open football in the league, it will be interesting to see how that translates in the championship now as well. There would be a consensus that Galway footballers like to play football.

“We do but we have to be pragmatic as well and play what is in front of us too and adapt for each game as it comes so that is where we are going to focus. We are going to try and play as much football as we can this summer but we have to be realistic too and see who we are playing against.”

What type of football championship do you think is in store? Let us know in the comments section below

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