There will be no Jim McGuinness for football fans in 2015 but there will once again be a Gooch to marvel at.
Uneasy rests the crown
Only once in the last 20-odd years has a side retained the All-Ireland football title.
Kerry did so in 2007 despite a managerial change (Pat O’Shea took over from Jack O’Connor) and with a sprinkling of some younger players built around a core of experience. You could say much the same about the Kingdom heading into 2015, except in 2007 they didn’t have two outstanding players returning to action in green and gold.
How Eamonn Fitzmaurice will accommodate Colm Cooper and Tommy Walsh in his plans will be very interesting. Would James O’Donoghue have been Player of the Year if Gooch was playing alongside him all season? Would Kieran Donaghy have ignited if Kerry had easily beaten Mayo on day one in Croke Park?
The Kingdom appear to be the toughest nut to crack due to tactical flexibility and squad depth. Now, with two top class forwards back in harness, they have just added another layer to their hardened shell.
However, do they have the hunger and desire, and will they have the luck that you need to get though another All-Ireland campaign? Only time can tell.
The Dubs will be back
The man who learnt most from the 2014 season was Jim Gavin. And he learned in it defeat. If he doesn’t use the loss to Donegal as the biggest stick to beat his players with in January then he’s missing a trick. Did he believe the hype about Dublin? Did the players?
Tactically, Dublin will have to sharpen up. Donegal did what no other side could – they out-thought and out-fought Dublin and then had the forwards to pick off their chances.
Winning a game all guns blazing will only work so many times. Are they hamstrung by the Leinster championship being so poor? Perhaps, but Kerry don’t have much in Munster to trouble them either and they do OK.
The Dublin half-back line cannot bomb forward every single minute of a game. A little more restraint and an end to this nonsense of finishing the match with your best 15 on the pitch and Jim Gavin’s side can lift Sam Maguire again.
They have the players, the manager and now a chip on their shoulder. Sounds like a perfect combination to us.
Life without Jim and James
They are two the characters that have come to dominate GAA in their own unique way over the past number of seasons but we won’t see them in 2015. How Donegal fare after the Messiah is up for debate. Rory Gallagher is an astute figure, he has charm and he is probably just what the group needs to kick on after McGuinness.
It’s a bit like Bob Paisley taking the reigns at Liverpool after Bill Shankly retired. Don’t shake things up, just do things a little differently but make your own mark in a discreet way away from the glare of the media. Donegal were within a post of beating Kerry. Tactically they may have to change after Fitzmaurice negated them so successfully but no other county came as close for so long.
A tweak here and there and one or two of the minor panel to come through and the Ulster champions should still challenge.
In the west things may be a lot different now that James Horan has exited stage left. The mess that the county board made of appointing his successor may yet leak through to the squad. There is no doubting Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly’s CVs but they must feel that they are starting on a sour note over the handling of the whole affair.
How many times can you be knocked down and keep coming back for more? Cillian O’Connor is one of the best forwards of his generation yet too often Mayo leave him to soldier alone. A variation of style and perhaps even personnel in key positions may be required if they are to draw from the well once again.
It is a massive task and Mayo could be a side that may be about to slip away from the top of the pile.
Podge Collins to light up Division 3
One of the finest hurlers ever to come out of Clare has controversially put all his eggs in the Banner’s football basket and we can’t wait.
Clare were ever so close to dumping Kildare out of the championship in Ennis and there is a growing feeling that with Collins and perhaps a number of other absentee hurlers the Munster side could cause a few upsets in 2015.
Division 3 will be a massive step up after swimming in the backwaters of Ruislip and Dr Cullen Park, but physical fitness won’t be an issue under Colm Collins and their short style of play will be a breath of fresh air in the third tier.
Podge has incredible skill as a footballer and his runs at defences, especially in the muck of February, March and April, will mean that Clare should should be good enough to at least challenge for promotion.
If Collins is a success as a footballer it should also lead to some interesting times in Clare as shouts for his re-introduction to the hurling panel should re-ignite those great arguments over dual players.
Keep up the good work officials
OK, so this may blow up in our faces in a spectacular way and there is always bound to be some controversy, but we think that as a whole, 2014 was a decent year for the men in black. We hope that 2015 continues the upward trend.
Granted, Cormac Reilly may not have had his best day in the Gaelic Grounds for the Kerry-Mayo game but generally the black card rule was a success and the scores in games reflected it. Teams, players and officials all came up to speed quite quickly and it made for very entertaining football.
The Sunday Game can often be a little too harsh on referees, as with the benefit of multiple angles and slow motion replays incidents can often look much worse than they are. Referees need some more protection and we’d hope that changes to time-keeping and any other help that they can be afforded would improve their all-round performance.
We’d love to see Joe Brolly try and make a snap decision from 40 metres after running a few miles in Clones in July in an Ulster final and see how easy it is then.
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