The number of bizarre goals that have been scored in this year’s Championship has been, well, bizarre.
Last weekend gave several reminders of how innovative the tactics are in Gaelic football, but surely managers have to shout stop at this stage.
Football has now essentially become a field version of basketball; when you have the ball, everyone attacks (even your goalkeeper) and when you don’t, everyone gets behind the ball.
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Defenders are being coached away from sitting back and minding the house when their team is in possession but instead to get forward into the opposition 45 and ‘occupy’ their defensive structure.
Often, the aim here is to drag the defence back towards their own goal which might enable their team to get shots off from the scoring zone. If you took a freeze frame, you will often see corner-backs and full-backs furthest forward, sometimes even standing on the end line.
If you did that a few years back you would be killed for taking up a forward’s space and would have some serious explaining to do in the post-match video analysis as to what the hell you were at.
Most of the time, teams would have been conscious of not committing more than seven or eight players to an attack and have whoever was left behind setting up for a possible counter attack.
Derry were lauded last year when regularly committing everyone to attack with up to six players in their full forward line at times. Like everything else in the GAA, most other coaches have now followed suit.
But, similarly, these innovative tactics eventually get figured out, exposed and punished.
Matty Taylor’s goal for Cork against Donegal kick-started a chaotic weekend of crazy goals.
It came after Ryan McHugh was dispossessed by Sean Powter about 50 metres from the Cork goal. The rest of the Donegal players were all ahead of McHugh so Powter popped the ball off to Taylor who, incredibly, had 80-90 metres of open country ahead of him with no Donegal player in sight.
Armagh scored two similar goals against Derry on Sunday. For the first one, Conor McCluskey was turned over in the Armagh half with only Conor Glass behind him. Oisín Conaty picked up the ball and ran all the way into the Armagh half unchallenged before passing to Ross McQuillan to fire home.
Armagh’s second goal was even worse. Derry, again, had everyone committed inside the Armagh 45. Brendan Rogers tried a sideways pass to Conor McCluskey who attempted to join the attack.
The ball was intercepted and Conor Turbitt, who McCluskey had left all alone, has a full half of grass to run into before smashing past Odhran Lynch as the rest of the Derry Defence watched from afar.
Shane Walsh was given similar latitude in Mullingar as he pounced on a wayward cross field ball around halfway and, again, had a whole half to run into without a Westmeath defender anywhere nearby.
It wasn’t just wandering defenders that were punished last weekend either. Louth’s goalkeeper Niall McDonnell was nowhere to be seen as Monaghan’s Michael Bannigan fired into an empty net from 30 yards out, making a walk of shame similar to that of Lynch and Rory Beggan earlier this year.
The phrase innovation for innovation’s sake comes to mind.
Dessie and Jack happy as Larry
The general discourse this time last year was how the Championship was the most open in years.
That was, of course, before Dublin and Kerry clicked into gear from the quarter-finals onwards.
Fast-forward a year and there is no doubt the big two are still the top dogs in the Championship. They are the only unbeaten teams left along with Galway.
The Championship will be 10 weeks old by the time they play again and there hasn’t been a glove laid on either of them yet.
Their respective provincial championships have, again, been a stroll in the park and the same goes for their first two group games.
Dublin have been typically ruthless in the face of inferior opposition so far. In the five games they have played they have scored a staggering of 14-96, with a combined winning total of 74 points.
While Kerry haven’t been as dominant in their four games, they have still won them by a combined total of 34 points and scored 2-64 in the process.
Both have been blessed by the group stage draw and haven’t even broken sweat yet. The top ranking teams both have faced so far were Roscommon and Monaghan, both of whom were relegated from Division One. Dublin will, of course, face a stiffer challenge against Mayo in round three.
Compare this to the battering and bruising Ulster teams like Donegal, Armagh, Tyrone and Derry have endured in both the Ulster Championship and the first two rounds of the group stages and it is worlds apart.
Some will argue that both Dublin and Kerry could be undercooked going into the All-Ireland quarter-finals as a result but I suspect both Dessie Farrell and Jack O’Connor are quietly pleased their teams haven’t had to exert themselves too much so far.
Tailteann Cup limping on
The All-Ireland series isn’t the only competition that’s failed to capture the public imagination.
The attendances at most of the Tailteann Cup games have been very poor. Seventy-five people at the meeting of Waterford and Longford last weekend is quite incredible.
Leitrim-Wicklow is probably the tie of this week’s preliminary quarters-finals.
Leitrim have to give up home advantage due to works being carried out on their home ground, but they have good memories of Pearse Park from beating Longford there a few weeks ago.
They were right in the game with Kildare going down the home stretch last week before Glenn Ryan’s side finished strongly.
Wicklow’s form after a good Leinster Championship has been patchy. They were hammered by Fermanagh and beaten by Laois before getting a win last week against Carlow. I fancy Leitrim to get by in this one.
Elsewhere, I expect wins for Limerick, Laois and Antrim.
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