1. Cart before the ass
The stirrings are likely to develop into waves of Joe Public asking WhatInDaNameAJaysus are they doing above, inside and beyond in Croke Park, making a draw for the All-Ireland football championship when the ribbons of eight different counties are still on the provincial championship cups.
And it’s a fair point. But a losing argument.
This draw is now where the focus is, not the two provincial finals this weekend and the two to follow the week after.
Before last year’s competition, a Croke Park committee gave a presentation to some journalists about how the new system of 16 teams worked.
One journalist was asking in a very offhand way if teams might spot a handier escape route through the group stages by losing a provincial final. The response was of an administrator losing patience rapidly, saying that such a scenario would never come to pass in the GAA, and we might as well pack it all up if there were to be the case.
But just indulge us here.
Whoever wins the Connacht final this Sunday will be at home to league champions Derry on 18 May; whoever loses will be at home to Cavan.
You see where we’re going with this.
2. An issue of neutrality
The Glitch hasn’t gone away. It lives in the system, a ready-made gremlin designed to infuriate with seemingly nothing anyone can do. Factory reset doesn’t seem to be an option.
Yes indeed, let’s just say Dublin win the Leinster final against Louth, a team they beat in the decider last year by 21 points.
Well, then they will be out on the weekend of 25/26 May against Roscommon. In Croke Park.
They will then have a trip to Kingspan Breffni to meet Cavan, before the final game in the sequence, against the Connacht losers.
Now, chances are, Dublin are going to be more than okay after the first two games, but let’s say they were in bother and either Roscommon or Cavan took a chunk out of them.
Makes it interesting therefore for the final round game against the beaten Connacht finalists? What with the game being played on neutral turf and all that?
In the past, games of these type were then fixed for Croke Park, with the baseless justification that it was, in fact, a neutral stadium that, good golly gosh, just happened to be in Dublin.
Last year the GAA officials confirmed that such a scenario might occur again, but when Dublin went to play Sligo on the final group game, it was hosted in Kingspan Breffni. They couldn’t have taken the shame.
Watch that space, all the same.
3. Ulster gutting match ahoy
No matter what happens, one of the games of the series to look out for will happen on Ulster soil. On the opening weekend, either Armagh or Donegal will be hosting a Tyrone team that will be smarting as they limped out of the Ulster championship after having played two games that tipped into extra-time.
Losing to Donegal is sore enough for them, but if Jim McGuinness’s men win Ulster, the first game back is a home fixture against Tyrone, a county that have, since the scrapping of the straight knockout format, managed to find ways to regenerate away from prying eyes.
Should Armagh finally win an Ulster title in Kieran McGeeney’s tenth year in charge, the first team that will clap them onto a field will be Tyrone. The two met on a roasting June night last year with skin and hair flying.
I get it. Maybe you tune into these group stages to get away from that whole Ulster thing and everything it stands for, but there will be a grim fascination for these match-ups.
4. Scant sympathy for Kerry
Sorry to sound like an echo here, but let’s say Kerry could just about manage to squeeze out another Munster championship, their 85th let us remind you, against Clare who they beat in last year’s final by 14 points.
Their list of assignments look far from daunting. Monaghan at home. An away trip to play Meath who were Tailteann Cup winners last year and quite unimpressive in Division 2 this spring before a by now traditional hiding by Dublin.
Finishing up with a game at a neutral venue against the losers of the Leinster final, who for argument’s sake, will be Louth.
A handy run to a quarter final? You might say.
5. Summer starts here
Talking to John O’Mahony, the most decorated Connacht-winning manager of all time this week, he remarked on how there is virtually no county colours hung out around Mayo and Galway aside from those die-hards that fly them all year.
Two counties on 48 titles each, a day that promises good weather in Salthill with bucketfuls of rituals and traditions, and people are just not up for it.
The provincials are over. The new fascination is with this format — and it has fascinations. No matter what happens over the next few weeks, Jim McGuinness and Donegal will have to face either Derry or Tyrone again and that will be so tasty, you could spread it on toast.
And for those complaining about three teams going through out of groups of four, well that caught out many teams last year who only seemed to twig the ramifications as they headed into the last weekend.
You cannot afford to have a down week. Look at the teams that went into the preliminary quarter-finals last year. Mayo, Monaghan, Tyrone and Roscommon all went through. Only Monaghan lived to fight another day, and that was through a penalty shoot-out win over Armagh.
The three games in three weeks sorts out the stragglers.
The summer starts here. Make no mistake.
