GAELIC GAMES/ALL-IRELAND UNDER-21 FOOTBALL FINAL:THE ALL-IRELAND under-21 football final between Galway and Cavan takes place in Croke Park this Sunday as the curtain-raiser to the National Hurling League final between Dublin and Cork.

Now, if the wilder estimates are to be believed, 20,000 foot soldiers from Kingdom of Breifne will descend upon the Dublin 1 area. That figure sounds a little like propaganda but it is safe to assume that every football household in Cavan will be sending an emissary.

Speaking to the managers and captains from either county yesterday further highlighted the excitement levels but, equally, it raised the contentious subject of fixture congestion once again.

Almost every player involved on Sunday has attempted to balance playing Sigerson Cup, or some third level football, this season while keeping their focus on the under-21 championship.

“Perhaps if the Sigerson was moved before Christmas it would take some pressure off players,” was the suggestion of Cavan manager Terry Hyland.

This sentiment was echoed by his Galway counterpart Alan Mulholland. “It would give a little bit of space to this competition. I was also talking to Terry about lads going away for the summer. Both of us have a few lads going off to America.

“So this competition has to be played before the summer starts. If you put all that into the pot, then the current situation isn’t working to the optimum. Something has to give. Maybe the colleges would kick up if it (Sigerson) had to be played before Christmas. But that’s what we’d say anyway. Give us a little bit of space.”

Just a little, especially considering an All-Ireland final tends to trump a player’s adherence to his studies. “All that is in my head is football at the moment,” said Cavan captain Gearóid McKiernan. “I’m studying in DIT (business) but I would happily fail every exam to win on Sunday.”

That Galway made it this far is a surprise. Minor All-Ireland champions in 2007, last season was supposed to see that crop mature but it went horribly wrong in their first game.

“It was my first year with the under-21s,” explained Mulholland. “We really thought we had a good side. Having been minor champions three years earlier, you would. But we got chinned by Sligo in the first round. That was a big blow to us. So then when we came to this year, we weren’t looking beyond Sligo. We were just looking to get over the first hurdle.

“With the under-21 championship, as I’m finding out with third-level, FBD League and National Football League and everyone pulling out of them, you don’t get access to your players until the thing starts.

“So, if you lose the first round, you’re gone. If you get over it, then people start to take notice of you and you’re able to make demands of other managers, saying ‘no, I need them here’. So it’s all about momentum with under-21s and once we beat Sligo we were able to build on that.”

They beat the defending All-Ireland champions Cork in the semi-final. A Cork team that included senior All-Ireland winners like Aidan Walsh and Ciarán Sheehan.

The efforts of two midfielders fresh out of minor, Tomás Flynn and Fintan Curran, provided the platform for a famous 1-11 to 0-12 victory. “We were able to throw off the shackles and play with a bit of abandon. I think by the time Cork realised they were in a real match it was probably a little too late for them,” said Mulholland.

This opened a route to broaching the subject of Galway’s traditional style of play. Mulholland, conscious not to be critical of the opposition, spoke well on the matter.

“When a team plays defensive football sometimes they are attributed with more tactical nuance than really they deserve. When a team plays attacking football they are deemed to be not very tactically aware. Man United play attacking football, yet they know what they are doing on the bench. Kerry play very attacking football but they are tactically aware as well,” added Mulholland.

“It is a choice Galway football has made, it’s probably a tradition that has grown up, that we like to play attacking football if we can. That doesn’t necessarily mean we are not aware of tactics – it’s a decision we make that we try not to get 12 men behind the ball. We prefer not to do that.

“It’s not that we have woken up 20 years after the GAA world has gone on. We know we are going to do it different to Tyrone and other teams who get a lot of men behind the ball, we decide to play like that. I think Galway has done decently in Croke Park and maybe that’s because once you get into the open spaces maybe Galway football does suit this type of big pitch.”