A word of warning for the four table-toppers playing at Croke Park – it’s two years since one of your kind managed to win a divisional title.
That anomaly occurred when Kerry, having finished four points ahead of everyone else in Allianz Division 1, beat Derry at GAA HQ.
Pity none of the other divisional first-place finishers could follow suit. Runners-up Armagh, Sligo and Limerick beat teams – Down, Antrim and Waterford respectively – that had superior records to them in the league proper.
Here’s another pearl of peril for the best in the divisions – since the re-introduction of the four divisions in 2008, nine of the 12 division finals have been won by the second-place teams.
Kerry in 2009 and Derry (Division 1) and Offaly (Division 4) in 2008 are the only table-toppers to follow up their impressive league runs with a title.
So what gives? Why do Dublin, Donegal, Westmeath and Roscommon have reason to fear this tradition of failings?
Good old honest revenge is the obvious and probably most accurate answer. All but one of those nine finals won by the runners-up was payback for the second-place teams who’d lost to their opponents earlier in the competition.
Don’t forget either Kerry’s 2009 win over Derry came a year after the Oak Leafers had surprised them in the dullest of dull finals in Parnell Park. As much as it was the league, scores had to be settled.
Clearly, as much as teams like to think they’re above it all, nothing quite moves a team in the league than a chance to soften their coughs on a bigger occasion. To paraphrase the well-worn Munster rugby saying: you may beat us once, but you don’t do it twice.
At the same time, only Dublin and Roscommon have got the better of their final opposition this year, Division 2 leaders Donegal and Division 3 toppers Westmeath having already lost to their rivals this campaign.
But aside from revenge, isn’t there a touch of anti-climax about the whole league final scenario? The hard yards have already been made, promotion for the bottom three divisional finalists has been won... what’s left but a pot you’re not allowed to drink from (apparently)?
Donegal will cherish the return to Croke Park but as Jim McGuinness pointed out it’s only three weeks before they open their Ulster campaign against Antrim.
Next to Derry, Donegal are regarded as a qualifier team so there is major emphasis on their provincial pursuits. McGuinness doesn’t so much have one eye on that May 15 game in Ballybofey as much as two.
No doubt about it, this weekend’s games give counties another competitive run-out before the championship. Compared to the challenge game circus in the coming weeks, there’s no comparison in what is the more meaningful activity.
But for Dublin and Cork, Sunday is but just another platform. The provincial championships to them are but the straightest road. By extension, a league final bridges the gap to that road. Not the most romantic type of thinking but that’s the way it is.
Next year, with league semi-finals in place in Division 1, the onus on winning early league games won’t be as strong. Teams will aim to peak for the latter half of the league safe in the knowledge they will only need three wins and a draw to get into the last four.
People aren’t stupid; unless there’s a particularly tasty repeat of a previous year’s championship or a derby, they’re not going to turn out for games in February.
And maybe, just maybe, managers will take the hint and use those first two league games to try out new players and give the high mileage an extended time to condition themselves for the season ahead.
But for now the play-offs are restricted to two and if Dublin have been reading as much into how well league champions have done in the following championship they should also take notice of how the best team in the country in the first quarter of the year often falls in April.
As irony would have it, the bookmakers have made all four table-toppers favourites to come away with the silverware this weekend.
When it comes to Gaelic games, tradition has an awful habit of dwarfing logic. They’ve been warned.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/-qJcuS6nJOY/post.aspx
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