Four different paths to National Football League semi-finals

The audit of the National Football League is nearly complete. It’s an unusual competition in that the evidence of a given campaign isn’t considered hugely enhanced by the stuff that happens at the end, such as who actually wins the title.

League victories are always contextualised by what happens during the summer.

Whereas a team winning the National Hurling League can take absolute value from the achievement – Dublin and Waterford in recent seasons – in football no one back as far as arguably Derry, all of eight years ago, could say the same.

At the moment it’s increasingly as if the league just adds an asterisk to All-Ireland success.

In the past 10 years it has been as usual to win the double as not.

DUBLIN

When a team is as consistently dominant as Jim Gavin’s Dublin it’s easy to become blase but the statistics are extraordinary. They are on the trail of a fourth successive league win, a feat achieved only twice before in football.

The county has become the first in the modern era to win all their fixtures in Division One; you have to go back to Derry 24 years ago to find the last time that happened and with a far easier structure. Then there is the fact that under Gavin Dublin have lost just one competitive match after St Patrick’s Day in the last three years – albeit an important one in the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final.

No one’s going to miss a beat should Dublin fail to win the league this month.To be able to carry the bat through seven matches in a highly competitive division has been an impressive declaration of intent for a team that has lost, for the season, two All Star defenders: Rory O’Carroll – the best full back in the game over the past six years – and current Footballer of the Year Jack McCaffrey.

ROSCOMMON

The miracle of Roscommon has seen greatly encouraging progress on the football front go hand in hand with administrative disaster in the form of the Hyde Park surface, the most contentious water course since the

Suez

Crisis.

The inability to play any more than one of their home matches at the county ground didn’t appear to inhibit the county, as they aquaplaned in to the semi-finals for the first time in 14 years. However, maybe the narrow defeat by Dublin at the weekend – and on an associated issue, almost certainly the Connacht under-21 final that was to have been at home – could have been turned around with home advantage.

It has all combined to give Roscommon what must be a unique distinction: after their semi-final against Kerry in Croke Park this Sunday, they will have played eight fixtures at eight different venues.

They've greatly added to an unusual season in the division, which has seen no draws and results split 50-50 between the home and away teams – allowing that two of Roscommon's matches were played in Longford and Carrick-on-Shannon.

The one that did go ahead at Hyde Park was the most disappointing for Kevin McStay and Fergal O’Donnell, as Mayo, the county they hope to challenge in this year’s Connacht championship, made rather too easy work of them and, but for familiar failings upfront, would have handed Roscommon an uncomfortable beating.

KERRY

Dublin aren’t alone in having enhanced their reputation in the league so far. All-Ireland finalists Kerry have bounced back with intent. Unusually under

Eamonn Fitzmaurice

they have reached the play-offs but more to the point they look fresh and capable. They have drawn striking performances from veterans

Kieran Donaghy

and

Colm Cooper

– mercifully restored after a gruelling 24 months out with and recovering from serious injury.

With 2014 Footballer of the Year James O’Donoghue still to return, it’s clear Kerry will be nicely positioned for the campaign to regain the All-Ireland they lost rather tamely in last year’s final.

Last weekend's win over Cork led to what one press-box wit described as the "grief-stricken" announcement from Radio Kerry Sport. In what could have been a Carlsberg ad, the tweet reported: "Kerry win leads to Cork relegation."

DONEGAL

Curiously only four of the 10 counties to have qualified for the league play-offs actually won their final divisional match. The most disquieting momentum is with

Donegal

, who finished in the logjam on six points, from which Cork were relegated.

Rory Gallagher’s team just about made the semi-final to play Dublin, having lost altitude at a dizzying rate after winning their first three fixtures. The setbacks culminated in an inability to hang on to a seven-point lead and hand Monaghan relegation as well as defeat (only Pollyanna, maybe, thinks that counties aren’t grimly pleased to see co-provincials take a drop).

What must bother Donegal most is how their scoring rate tailed off in the tougher fixtures. They began the campaign averaging more than 20 points in the first three matches and then in the remaining four the figure dropped by more than eight per match.

They played a tribute night to 2011’s “cat o’naccio” but Dublin still won by six and it will be interesting to see how Gallagher sets them up for Sunday’s rematch.

smoran@irishtimes.com