It was a bit of a shame after what was a thrilling opening weekend of the league that it was familiar gripes around the rules that hogged the headlines.
Hooter-gate and the handing-the-ball-back business are a bone of contention once again.
They’ve tweaked the hooter rule to avoid the scenario we saw most clearly in last year’s All-Ireland final, where teams were minding the ball for upwards of two minutes so that they had possession when the hooter sounded and they could get the last shot away.
This followed a previous change where the immediate stop to the game that the hooter had signalled was altered after a controversial end to a Westmeath-Meath league game.
Now, they’ve gone back to something like the original rule, except that if the ball is in flight, any ensuing score will stand.
And yet it’s still causing confusion. Do you feel we’re going around in circles here?
We’ve seen situations where the clock in the stadium and the clock that lies with the fourth official aren’t aligned, creating uncertainty for players. It feels inevitable that this is going to be a source of continued controversy as the season goes on.
The new hooter system has come under fire
I wonder if it’s an attempt to solve a problem that didn’t really exist.
I know the old dispensation where the ref had a measure of discretion on when to end the game wasn’t perfect. But it seems preferable to what’s going on at present and is also less anti-climactic.
As Éamonn Fitzmaurice has been busy telling everybody, the rules are set in stone for the time being and won’t be changed until at least the end of the championship.
Regarding the 50m penalty for failing to hand the ball back, most people agree it’s massively disproportionate but it’s here now.
The best course of action in the short term is for referees to be less rash and trigger-happy in applying the rule in borderline cases and to be alert to teams who are trying to engineer an advancement, as Daingean Uí Chúis clearly did in the Munster final.
Outside of these issues, the opening weekend was another tribute to the work of the FRC.
Across all the games, we saw teams pushing up and going man-on-man, pressing opposition kickouts.
We saw more direct attacking and teams seeking to exploit the possibilities of the three-on-three, especially in Salthill which was a real barn-stormer of a game.
We even saw Donegal pushing out even if Jim McGuinness didn’t want to answer any questions on the matter.
Jim seemingly went into a cave in the wake of last summer’s All-Ireland final and we hadn’t seen sight of him since. Clearly, he didn’t like being asked what sounded like very fair questions on his set-up.
No one is questioning McGuinness’s achievements as a manager, which are incredible – they’re just wondering about what looked like a tactical malfunction in an All-Ireland final, where Paudie Clifford was allowed free rein to dictate the game.
You’d suspect that Jim is again building a siege mentality around the camp, as he did last year regarding the Hyde Park business. Good luck to him, if that’s the case.
One thing we can be reasonably sure about is Donegal will be there or thereabouts this year.
One effect of the implosion against Kerry last year is that people forgot how impressive they were en route to the final. They’re not far away and if they learn the lessons of that game, they’ll go very close.
Last Saturday’s performance was a reminder of their credentials. Shea Malone looked like a real find.
He’s another lad with a soccer background, a common enough story with in Donegal. He took his goal well and could thrive if he gets the supply.
With home advantage and revenge on their mind, I’d fancy them to win in the repeat of the All-Ireland final against a Kerry side, who were very lucky to sneak a victory at home to a weakened Roscommon.
Mayo were the winners in Pearse Stadium, as were the watching public and the sport itself. It was a superbly entertaining spectacle and a good fillip for Andy Moran at the start of his reign.
It justified the tentative optimism that has returned to Mayo football over recent months. There were several positive strands.
Robbie Hennelly’s return from inter-county retirement was a triumph. He was Beggan-like on the long range frees and made a string of saves. Given the issues with two-pointers last year, this is a potential game-changer for Mayo.
Darragh Beirne’s showing was a serious positive for Mayo
Ryan O’Donoghue was excellent at centre-forward, Tommy Conroy was lively in the corner, while 19-year old Darragh Beirne made a stellar league debut.
I’ve watched Beirne for the Mayo Under-20s, and for Claremorris when they played our club in the Mayo Under-20 final. He’s a really good footballer, a smart footballer.
And, crucially, he’s a left-footed forward, which we’ve been badly stuck for in the last few years.
Galway, you’d have to think, will be reasonably happy with how things went, given how many absentees they had. The production line is fairly impressive there and they seem to have no end of stylish half-forwards – Ciaran Mulhern slipped into the spot vacated by Matthew Thompson and looked the part.
Pádraic Joyce was presumably wincing at all the goal chances missed and that was probably the biggest concern for Mayo. You could see it as the flipside of their high pressing game, which was in the main pretty successful.
It’s something to be mindful of but overall, I think Mayo supporters are relieved to see them embrace that heavy metal approach, pushing up and getting in the opposition’s faces. We saw them engineer plenty of scores from turnovers.
There’s no punditry duty for me this week but I’ll be in situ at MacHale Park, cautiously optimistic for a victory over Dublin – provided the tendency towards sluggish home form doesn’t re-emerge.
The biggest winners across the top two divisions were Meath, in my view. They were magnificent in the second half against a team perceived as one of their big rivals for promotion.
On top of that, Kildare got a terrific result against Tyrone in Omagh – and it could have been even better but for a last-gasp point attempt dropping short.
It should be a huge confidence builder for them and the manner in which the game finished was testament to their resolve – not a trait we’ve always associated with Kildare.
It was strong evidence that the Leinster football championship is wide open this year. I genuinely thought I’d be dead in the grave before anyone was able to say that again.
Watch Armagh v Galway in the Allianz Football League on Saturday from 4.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on the RTÉ News App and on rte.ie/sport.
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