Football retakes the limelight from Hurling

IN ALL FAIRNESS

There are a number of ways you can look back on last Sunday’s All-Ireland Senior Club finals at Croke Park, and indeed the intermediate and junior deciders the weekend before.

The senior final schedule always has the hurling decider first, even when the curtain-raiser is the higher profile fixture than the football final, which also runs the risk of the excitement levels and entertainment dropping as the day went on.

Well, Gaelic football has well and truly reclaimed the limelight from hurling, particularly with the impact of the new rules over the last twelve months. Players and coaches want to win by any means they can, even if it leads to a dull spectacle, but spectators want to be entertained, and until Jim Gavin and his band of merry men were brought together in late 2024 to save Gaelic football, the game was in a dark place.

I recall immediate build-up to the 2024 All-Ireland final between Armagh and Galway. You could feel the excitement and anticipation coming through the television but within seconds of the throw-in, that all evaporated as Galway won possession, from where all six Armagh forwards raced back to take up their defensive positions, leading to where Galway held possession almost unchallenged for around two minutes until they found a chink in the armour to get the opening score. From a coaching perspective, it was perfection, from an entertainment point of view, it was dull.

What the last twelve months have shown and indeed the last two weekends with the club finals, if you are not prepared to attack, as well as defend, you have little or no chance of success. It will haunt Glenullin until such time as the Derry side get back to Croke Park to compete for an All-Ireland title that they employed such a negative gameplan in the intermediate decider against An Ghaeltacht.

They essentially employed a pre-2025 game-plan where they were prepared to give up possession and allow the Kerry side to have the ball almost unchallenged, in the hope that when they attack, they either turn them over and counterattack, or force them to miss a shot at goal.

The last six months have shown that the new rules are leading to the more skilful and talented teams being successful, and there are none better than Kerry who now hold the All-Ireland titles in senior, intermediate and junior club football, as well as the senior inter-county.

Maybe we’ll get sick of them if they start to become too dominant in the coming years but they play the game the way it should be played. Yes, it is all about scoring one point more than the opposition at the final whistle, but not 0-11 to 0-10 games.

That’s the kind of football that makes it a chore for players to give them commitment they do. Players should be allowed to express themselves as much as possible and show off the range of skills they have, rather than focus on what they can’t do and make sure that doesn’t prove costly.

In terms of the hurling final, Ballygunner’s second All-Ireland title was expected, but they play a brand of hurling that isn’t every exciting. It is very effective, almost pre-programmed as to how they go about it. It’s as if they use the first half of games to size up their opponent and see what they are doing, and then at half time they decide on the gameplan to go and win the game in the second half.

It's very measured, well-rehearsed, and almost impossible to stop when it comes off. The teams that have managed to take them down in recent years, the likes of St Thomas’ and Sarsfields, brought a ferocious level of intensity that knocked them off their stride.

Their style is effective at club level but it is hard to think that it will translate to inter-county, despite Waterford playing a broadly similar type of game. They haven’t been far away from getting out of Munster in recent years, and it can not be forgotten that they were All-Ireland Finalists in 2020, but you have to take risks in possession to get big scores, particularly getting goals.

With the best club team in the country, there doesn't seem to be much hunger for all the best players on the Ballygunner team to make themselves available for the Deise. It’s hard to credit that the best hurling goalkeeper in the game, Stephen O’Keeffe, doesn’t play inter-county hurling.

When your ability to achieve success is sated at club level, it is hard to blame him for not going in with Waterford once more and help them end their long wait for an All-Ireland title. His presence, if he chose to come back, would be a huge sign of belief to the rest of the Waterford panel that they have the ambition to make their mark in 2026.