In the days since the Division 1 final, there’s been some debate as to how much we’re to read into it.
It’s far from a disaster for Kerry but they’d be unwise to write off the significance of the loss either.
We took a pasting off Kerry in the league final in my final year with Mayo – aka, 2022 – and it seemed to start our summer off on a dampener. In truth, we never really got revving again after it.
A one-point defeat to Galway in Castlebar, a couple of scratchy qualifier wins and then a fairly comfortable loss to Kerry was our lot that year. James Horan was gone shortly after it and I wasn’t long after him.
Kerry are obviously in a very different place. They’re All-Ireland champions and most of the players have a couple of titles under their belt.
In all likelihood, the game can probably be understood as two teams who, for various reasons, were operating at different levels of intensity. Donegal and Jim McGuinness had a much greater incentive to go full pelt at the league decider, given the context of last year’s All-Ireland final.
They completely devoured Kerry in the midfield battle, with Jason McGee in from the start this time. They ruled the skies and then had an army of fast lads gathered in the area to hoover up any breaks.
Kerry simply couldn’t get the ball. The possession stats in the first half were incredibly lop-sided. It’s one way to stop David Clifford, I suppose.
Donegal’s attack is very measured and very methodical and they were able to work scores at will. They were utterly lethal in that spell in the second half when they buried three goals in the blink of an eye.
It’s probably a timely wake-up call for Kerry and we know they’re usually pretty good when it comes to heeding them.
Jack O’Connor may have a record for racking up league and championship doubles. But he also has a habit of overseeing All-Ireland titles after suffering a major setback somewhere along the way. In that sense, there’s little need to panic here.
It’s unlikely they’ll be so comprehensively beaten in a midfield tussle again.
Donegal emphatically won the middle third battle
What did we learn overall from the Division 1 campaign? Probably less than from any of the other divisions.
You wouldn’t say there were many shocking disclosures.
The two teams who wound up in last year’s All-Ireland final were in the league final. Aside from the outcome in the final, there’s not much change there.
Mayo have recovered some vim and enthusiasm under new management and have used plenty of players, but they did ship fairly comfortable beatings to the two best teams in the country.
Galway showed impressive resilience and depth and seemed to have unearthed more players. They’re still a contender, despite the continuing injury issues.
Roscommon got a decent-sized new manager bounce and they’ve no shortage of excellent forwards. If they get their full complement on the pitch, with the St Brigid’s players back integrated into the setup, the possibilities are huge.
Dublin descended deeper into transition and are barely favourites for Leinster anymore. And if this was a golf tournament, poor Monaghan have dropped off the leaderboard altogether and are falling back towards the cut-line.
The lower tiers, as usual, are probably more instructive given that there’s no ambiguity about teams’ intentions or motivation levels.
The bookies may not be there yet but after this year’s league, I’m inclined to make Meath favourites for Leinster this summer. Aside from anything else, they’re one of the most entertaining teams to watch at present. Amid all the concerns around safety-first hand-passing, they’re not afraid of a quick kick-pass into the full-forward line – there was one beauty from Eoghan Frayne, picking out James Conlon in the inside line from the ’45 against Cork.
Cork continued to make strides and managed to weather a shocker of a result up in Derry, mid-campaign. They’ll be competitive against Kerry in Munster even if they don’t yet have the arsenal to really take down the champions.
Jordan Morris celebrates at full-time of the Division 2 final
Louth remain a potent force and very credible contenders to regain their title in Leinster. Derry have finally got back on the winning trail although they may be understandably kicking themselves that they didn’t gain promotion after a slip up in Ardee.
And Tyrone continue to underwhelm. It’s hard to fathom how they’re stalling so badly. Few could have predicted they’d have been looking over their shoulder rather than focusing on the promotion tussle by the end of the campaign.
Some people want the league finals ditched but I thought they demonstrated their worth at the weekend. We saw the excitement in Carlow at winning their first title in Croke Park since the 1940s, and their first game at the venue – the statisticians tell me – since a random league match was moved there in the 1970s.
The Division 2 final, ordinarily a low-stakes game, was a hugely entertaining spectacle that swung this way and that. Perhaps the fact that it’s a free hit may influence that.
Arguably, the dreariest game of last week was the one with the most riding on it. Down made heavy weather of winning Division 3 and it’s possible they were inhibited by the consequences of failure.
Either way, the unsatisfactory ending to the game, with Down nursing possession until the dying seconds, saw the hooter debate resurrected.
Down manager Conor Laverty
There was also a controversial ending to the Meath-Cork game when tactical fouling prevented Cork getting in range of an equalising score before the clock ran down. John Cleary noted that this problem is only likely to magnify once we get into championship.
I’m on record in this column in thinking that the hooter was an unnecessary device to introduce into the game. The ref playing injury-time and applying a degree of reasonable discretion on when to blow things up seemed fine to me.
But I’ve accepted that the hooter is here to stay. I can see there is merit to it in terms of fairness. Previously, it had been noted that refs tended to play more injury-time in the second half than the first and this could end up benefiting one team or other.
We’ve been round the houses on this topic. Perhaps we were guilty of over-reacting to one play at the end of the first half in last year’s All-Ireland final? It’s hard to say that this new formula is any better.
It ended what was an exciting league campaign on a sour note.