Galway’s Cein Darcy scores the second goal of the game against rivals Derry earlier in May. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho. The great virtue of the new system, and the Super 8 round-robin before it, is that all teams go to the starting line together and the obstacle course is the same for everyone.
Already there are rumours that the administrative pendulum is swinging back towards a little more jeopardy. Suggestions are already in the ether to tweak the system by reducing the All-Ireland stages to four groups of three with provincial champions automatically proceeding to the quarter-finals — there to be joined by the four group winners.
As a final irony, after all the hullabaloo about who had seized home advantage, three of the four matches were won by the away side — Mayo against Galway, Tyrone in Donegal and Monaghan in Kildare’s temporary home of Tullamore. But three of the fixtures were also thrillers, won by a point.If there was a hard landing it arrived in the All-Ireland quarter-finals where the three provincial champions — Dublin, Kerry and Derry — a fortnight’s rest under their belts, won easily.
Kerry's David Clifford beats Monaghan's Ryan Wylie and Killian Lavelle to the ball. Clifford will again be piviotal to the Kingdom's hopes of lifting Sam this year. Photograh: Ken Sutton/Inpho Derry’s flatlining season received greater attention because the hopes vested in them had been correspondingly higher. Saturday’s defeat by Galway came with added misfortune when it was announced that Conor Doherty and Eoin McEvoy were not fit to play.
Goalkeeper Odhrán Lynch avoided the indignities of the Donegal defeat but did launch a kick-out straight at Matthew Tierney from which the first Galway goal flowed.