There was some grumbling, as there often is at this time of year, about the lack of a glamour fixture to kick off the GAA championships last weekend. Maybe it was the bright sunshine and unnatural heat, but to me, last weekend was a perfect start: a chance for Offaly, Fermanagh, Louth and Laois to bask in the limelight without any of the big boys of either sport casting a shadow.
The championships are not James Bond films (for "utterly superfluous pre-credits action sequence in glamorous locale", read "poisonous Ulster rivals pitted against each other in the preliminary round"). It seldom gets, and does not need, an explosive opening weekend. And just because we didn't see any All-Ireland winners last weekend doesn't mean it didn't matter.
Anyone suggesting to the Offaly team on Sunday evening that a defensive effort which saw 2-13 conceded to Longford just wouldn’t do against Dublin would have deserved whatever kind of Martin Hanamy-style punishment beating came their way.
After nine years of losing, Offaly just wanted to feel like winners. A summer’s day, a few early questions posed, a few hurdles overcome and a convincing victory to celebrate? When put like that, our needs as fans are very simple.
Perfect reminder
Instead of asking “why always us?”, the Offaly players can start asking, ‘why not us?’ They have Westmeath next, and their journey to the Leinster final last year is the perfect reminder of what a few summer wins can mean.
The presence of Dublin on the other side of the draw needn’t worry Offaly, Westmeath, Kildare or Wexford until they reach a Leinster final . . . and by that time, they’ll be in a Leinster final. Whichever of them are left standing will have at least two provincial championship wins against credible opposition under their belt; the vast expanse of country known as “bonus territory” will be under their command.
Dublin’s domination in Leinster, Mayo’s domination in Connacht and the long-standing duopoly down south can often overpower discussion about weekends like the one just gone. There have been a couple of years recently where the hurling championship seemed weighted down by the presence of Kilkenny – a sense that no game could exist in a Cats-free zone. Every game and every team were seen through the prism of their inevitable defenestration by Kilkenny.
Sometimes context can rob a full-blooded 70 minutes’ competition of its intrinsic merit. All the teams in action last weekend showed up fancying their chances. Last November they all circled May 15th in the diary and said, “we can win that”. That Louth and Carlow played for the chance to meet Meath to decide which one of them loses to Dublin can’t be the sum total of what it was about.
Expectation
Louth won promotion from Division 4 and had the sort of championship draw Louth managers must dream about. A game against a side you’ve already beaten in the league, followed by a derby against a Meath team that might be short on confidence.
If there’s a hiding from Dublin in their future, they can deal with that when it comes. In the meantime, there’s some fun to be had.
Will we see an All-Ireland winning team this weekend? Probably not, but storylines abound. Kildare lost the Division 3 league final to Clare calamitously but were far too good for that division. Roscommon were the story of February and March but they set out this weekend under pressure to start backing it up when the sun is out.
Derry and Tyrone meet for a fifth time this year already with Mickey Harte suddenly having to deal with expectation again.
Tyrone might be plotting for Dublin, as Jim McGuinness suggested they must in these pages last week. They should be plotting for Dublin because they will aim to beat the teams similar in quality to them and then have a crack at the teams on the level above them.
That’s the same aim that every other team has. It’s just a pity the competition we have that already allows teams to do that most effectively (the league) is disregarded or demeaned by most fans.
We’ll trot out the most en vogue statistic in the GAA again: the 20 provincial titles won in the last five years have been won by just six teams (Mayo and Dublin have won five each, Kerry four, Donegal have won three, Monaghan two and Cork one). But the last few days reminded us that those four trophies, and the Sam Maguire, aren’t the only prizes on offer over the next couple of months: Louth, Laois, Fermanagh and Offaly went a fair way to winning their piece of the GAA summer last weekend.
