On Gaelic Games: The sense of nostalgia has become palpable. After one of the most tactical All-Ireland hurling finals in years, there was much grumbling about the eclipse of old-style hurling and letting the ball fly.
It may be a more cerebral game nowadays but the notion of hoarding the ball is anathema to the game's dreamland. When Lory Meagher was led away in his slumbers to take part in spectral games in the other world, his phantom opponents didn't want him to make runs for the short puck-out or to hand-pass. Meagher woke having played a match you may be sure contained little more heretical than the Kilkenny legend's unorthodox fondness for lifting the ball rather than first timing it.
Ten days ago, however, as the postmortem took in the pampas grass surface at Croke Park and its impact on ground hurling, a friend mocked: "Ground hurling? What's that?" It could be said up until not very long ago hurling wasn't a particularly tactical game: too skilful and too fast to be enchained. These days it's frequently being broken down to create the best opportunities for whatever talent a team possesses. The idea of turning the match into 14 random contests is as old-fashioned as wearing a suit to Croke Park.
Football is different in that it has borne the attention of generation after generation of boffins and come through presenting slightly different styles with each era. The game has survived attempts to declare its mystery solved, whether through the solo run, the short pass, fixed-position play, "scientific" evolution, traditional catch and kick, hand-passing, support play, third centrefielders and stripped-down forward lines. Although hurling in the 1990s is passing into history as a decade of revolution with new counties coming to the fore, football's rebirth during the same era was at least as fundamental and even more destructive of the ancien regime.
Go back 15 years and look at the state of football. Then compare the intervening years. It says something about the iconic status of the four Dublin-Meath matches that dominated the early summer of 1991 that Down's breakthrough All-Ireland title was almost overshadowed. Almost - but not quite because the decade and a half since has shown that All-Ireland victory to have been as seminal as any in the GAA's history.
We're facing into the third All-Ireland final between Mayo and Kerry in 10 years. That's historically unusual and remarkable. Two seasons ago Mayo got drilled by Kerry and yet there is still a sneaking regard for the Connacht side and not unreasonably so given they look better than they did in 2004 whereas Kerry aren't as formidable looking. Nor is this an example of people getting fooled again like the crowd at a three-card trick being driven to unwise enthusiasms by some crafty shill because outside of Mayo two years ago, no one was fooled. Yet it reflects well on football that a potential pessimist's vindication of a match should have aroused such interest.
Over the past 15 years football has opened up to the country at large. Ironically it is Leinster, one of the old powers, that currently has least to cheer about but its championship brings out the crowds and has provided rare moments in the sun for a couple of forgotten counties in the past 10 years.
It's exactly 15 years ago on Friday that Down lit the fuse. Maybe it had to be them to lead the way with their innate confidence and immaculate record in All-Ireland finals and against Kerry, whom they effervescently dispatched in the semi-final. You almost needed to be there to understand how the old certainties dictated the football season. The only glimpse of a Connacht or Ulster county in an All-Ireland final came every three years when the lucky break semi-final between the provinces rotated around to give some improbable contenders a day out.
By 1991 Leinster and Munster had gobbled up the previous 23 All-Irelands since Down had last provided some variety in 1968. That sequence was unparalleled since the early days of the GAA when the association wasn't as advanced in the west and north, meaning that it took 38 years before Galway registered a first All-Ireland for either province. Once Connacht and Ulster - Cavan followed in 1933 - started to win there had never been anything like the gap that had yawned from 1968.Throughout that period the only time a Munster or Leinster county lost in even a semi-final to one of their Ulster or Connacht counterparts was in 1973 when Galway beat Offaly to face Cork in the final. Down's victory punched a hole in the dam of inhibition and diffidence and through that flowed successive wins for Donegal, Derry and another for Down.
From then on nothing was sacred. In the 15 years since there have been four new All-Ireland winners and the other 11 victories were achieved bridging an average gap of nearly 10 years. Not once has the Sam Maguire been retained. In other words football has been open. Historic provincial titles for Clare, Leitrim, Kildare, Laois and Westmeath have been complemented by stirring runs in the qualifier series. Nine counties have won the All-Ireland and Kerry with three are the most successful county during the period.
It's not out of antagonism to Kerry that the rest of the country probably hopes for Mayo to bridge that gap of 55 years in registering a fourth title. Either way football, for all the concerns, is open and the focus of attention in all four provinces.
