Great year on the pitch, not bad one off it

On Soccer: Supporters of Shelbourne, Shamrock Rovers and one or two other clubs might well disagree, but Sunday's cup final at Lansdowne Road rounded off one of the most productive and positive seasons for quite some time.

There is, as just about anybody who has set foot inside a league ground this season knows only too well, quite a way to go on all sorts of fronts, but in several key areas - notably the quality of the main competitions, playing standards and media coverage - significant progress was made with clear indications in the form of, for instance, the restoration of Government-backed capital funding, that there is a good deal more to follow.

It is not all good news. Attendances remain generally disappointing while too many clubs continue to adhere to budgetary principles that would seem rash and a little reckless if adopted for your average board game.

On other fronts, there has been strong evidence during the past 12 months that the league as a whole is moving steadily in the right direction.

What may yet prove to be a turning point in the league's fortunes was the Genesis report. The company's findings were not hugely revelatory and some of the recommendations were questionable, but what was important was that after a lengthy period of consultation the report helped to initiate what looks set to be the most frank and, ultimately, constructive debate on the future of the domestic game in living memory.

Where it all goes from here remains to be seen, but the foundations for far reaching and much needed reforms have finally been laid and if the clubs fail to build on them then for once they may have some difficulty finding somebody other than themselves to blame.

As it happened, the report was delivered towards the end of one of the best league campaigns of recent years. The resurgence of Cork and Derry, so closely matched they could only be separated on the last night of the season, at the expense of Shelbourne had a revitalising effect on the championship and provided an overdue reminder that the league need not be entirely dominated by clubs from the capital.

The cup, too, was a considerable success. Further tinkering with the way the various rounds were timed restored some element of competitiveness to the non-league sides while ensuring the competition had a steady momentum. Damien Richardson may favour moving the final so that the conditions are better, but the fact is none of the recent finals played before the conclusion of the league campaign have had anything like the impact of this year's event.

True, the particular combination of winners Drogheda and runners-up Cork brought a great deal to the occasion, but it would be bizarre to meddle with the competition after a final which attracted sizeable media coverage and the biggest crowd seen at a domestic game in 15 years.

The League Cup, meanwhile, continued its recovery from what had long looked terminal decline and on the European front there was consolidation with Cork City performing well before, like Shelbourne, exiting to manifestly superior opposition.

Longford's humiliating collapse in Wales was, of course, a considerable setback, but it would have been foolish to imagine we had come so far in recent seasons that such things weren't possible.

The TV deal struck by the FAI's negotiators meant the league got unprecedented coverage in a medium with which it has not traditionally had the best of relationships.

The quality of the coverage has been a little uneven, but it is still streets ahead of where it was even a few seasons ago and the improvement looks set to continue.

RTÉ, both television and (as always) radio, deserve considerable credit for the resources they have devoted to the game while Setanta's arrival on the scene has had a huge impact, not least because of the support they provided for the all-Ireland cup competition that the FAI had been quietly championing behind the scenes for several years.

The first Setanta Cup was not without its flaws, but the positives comfortably outweighed the negatives. The structure of next year's event looks to have been improved significantly and Linfield's victory over Shelbourne in the final, which rather dispelled the notion that southern teams would dominate the tournament, should have the effect of raising interest in and awareness of the competition north of the Border.

We are still in the very early days of the experiment, but the evidence of this first year suggests that it, rather than Genesis, might provide the competitive blueprint for the future. And while an all-Ireland league may still be some way off, the fact that it seemed even faintly believable in April and May that football might soon achieve its potential to bring the bring the people of this island together in a way that no other sport can aspire to might be the very best thing to come out of what was a pretty good year for the game here.