Days out from the beginning of the football championship and tipping season is in full swing.
Tyrone great Peter Canavan, like former Dublin forward Paul Flynn, fancies the Sky Blues for the All-Ireland. Their fellow RTÉ TV analyst David Tubridy reckons Mayo will finally end the famine. Mayo man Lee Keegan likes the look of Galway.
Meanwhile, holders Kerry and Canavan’s native Tyrone, the last two winners of the All-Ireland, must be wondering quite what they’ve done to be excluded from the conversations.
At one stage during a debate among pundits about the various runners and riders, Canavan jokingly intervened to remind everyone that Tyrone will be taking part too.
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“And no one’s talking about Kerry either,” said Canavan afterwards. “We also had a debate last Sunday night and predictions were made – Kerry weren’t really mentioned!
“The last two All-Ireland winners, nobody has predicted them to win this year. With Tyrone, I’m not surprised. But with Kerry, I’m very surprised. They have a lot of young and up and coming players and they have the best player in the country playing for them. So it’s surprising that they have been under the radar.
“People could be reading too much into Tyrone winning it, celebrating, going on holiday and all the rest of it and not coming back well then. Is that why people are writing Kerry off now? It seems to be because by and large they have the same panel of players that they had last year. I certainly wouldn’t rule them out. Them and Dublin are still going to have a big say in who wins the All-Ireland.”
If Tyrone are to do it again, Canavan’s two sons, Darragh and Ruairí, will surely have a significant say in it. Both are prodigious forwards with Ruairí breaking on to the scene this season and making four National League appearances, scoring two important points in the win over Kerry.
On how the likes of Tyrone and Kerry may approach the Championship and their quests to regain Sam, Canavan said that is the big unknown in the first season of the new All-Ireland qualifier group.
“It’s a complete battle of wits in terms of preparation,” he said. “For a team that’s in Division One, you’re going to be in the round robin no matter what you do, so for a lot of teams I would say their priority would be being in tip-top shape for the round robin rather than being in the tip-top shape for the provincial championships.
“This is the first year of the system and there’s going to be a lot of learnings in it. What happens this year will shape next year. For example, Mayo, they went flat out in the league, played great football. If they do the same in Connacht and win it and they go on and win the All-Ireland, then that’s the approach that every team will want next year.
“But let’s say Kerry come and win it again this year. They’ve been mediocre in the league, we haven’t seen them at their best yet so they may not set the world alight and they could even struggle through the round robin and then come really strong to win the All-Ireland.
“Then a lot of managers may think, ‘We’ve got to pace this, this is a marathon, this is not a sprint any more’. That’s the learnings that we’re going to find out as the season develops. We’re going to find out what approach is best.”
Meanwhile, Canavan called on the GAA to consider affording National League finalists at least a two-week break before the championship. Sligo, Mayo and Wicklow all contested finals last weekend yet will return to action within a week.
“The likes of Sligo and Mayo deserve better and the competition deserves better,” he said.
