Five things we learned this GAA weekend: Unpredictability of opening round strikes again

Few home comforts

On the face of it, the opening weekend of the football league was unusual as just one home team won their fixture in Division One – given a general strike rate across the board of about 60 per cent for home teams within the GAA.

Then again, the league isn’t always run on its merits. Teams are less likely to take chances with players carrying injury than they would in a championship match, for instance and individual defeats tend not to have consequences until later in the competition.

At the weekend, last year’s All-Ireland semi-finals were repeated with a different outcome in each. Team selection and motivation played a role but although nobody would have been particularly surprised at Derry’s successful raid on Tralee, Monaghan’s win in Croke Park with a side bereft of so many influential figures was a far longer shot.

All-Ireland champions Dublin have, however, had a less engaged recent history with the league and were even relegated two seasons ago. Add in Monaghan’s excellent record against them in the past few leagues, including the very match that relegated Dublin in 2022 and maybe Saturday merited more scrutiny.

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Neither is Croke Park a fortress in the spring competition and you have to go back eight years to find a season in which Dublin won all their home matches.

Back to opening weekend, which is also the least predictable series of matches, as teams haven’t been seen in serious competition for months. This time around, Tyrone were the only home winners but just two years ago no home side won in the first round of league fixtures.

There were three draws and another Dublin defeat in Croke Park, this time by Armagh.

Spread over the full season, though, there is remarkable consistency in the past two years. In both 2022 and ‘23, there were home wins on 18 occasions, three draws and seven away victories – accepting the one variable that Mayo played 2022 home matches in other Connacht venues while work was being done on MacHale Park. – Seán Moran

McGuinness steadies the Donegal ship

In Donegal’s last game of the 2023 National League, they travelled to Dr Hyde Park knowing survival in the top flight was on the line. However, they meekly surrendered their Division One status that afternoon, coming out on the wrong side of a 0-21 to 0-9 score against Roscommon.

A crowd of 4,219 attended that match, with no more than a couple of hundred bothering to make the trip from Donegal. But for their Division Two opener against Cork on Sunday, 5,092 flocked to Ballybofey – with up on 5,000 of those supporting the home team.

Jim McGuinness remains box office and there is sense among the locals that the Good Ship Donegal is in safe hands again after a difficult 2023 getting tossed about and battered in choppy waters.

Over the course of the entire 2023 season (McKenna Cup, league, championship), Donegal won only three matches. They lost 10 and drew one. Donegal have already won three games in 2024 (four if you include the annulled victory over Armagh). Their highest scoring return in last year’s league was 0-15. Their highest return all year was 1-15. They registered 1-20 last Sunday, had 12 different scorers, and were without several players. It’s only January but there is a genuine feeling in Donegal that they have, for now at least, found safe harbour again. – Gordon Manning

Worth watching if Dublin stick with quick release

Before it all started to wobble for Dublin on Saturday night, they did at least begin by looking like the best boys in class. The standout feature of their opening quarter against Monaghan wasn’t just the amount of quick, early ball they kept hitting into the full-forward line – it was the success they were getting out of it.

Cormac Costello’s goal after just four minutes started off with Ciarán Kilkenny finding Ross McGarry with a 40-metre kick. McGarry eschewed the mark and fed Costello for the goal. Luke Breathnach’s mark came from an arced Brian Fenton kick in the 45. Then Fenton found Con O’Callaghan with a long, looping ball that drew a foul on the full forward for Costello to ice a free, followed five minutes later by Fenton finding Costello this time before his lay-off was converted by Kilkenny.

So basically out of Dublin’s opening 1-4, you had 1-3 that came from either Fenton or Kilkenny – the designated midfielders for the night – doing the terribly old-fashioned thing of letting the ball in. They led by 1-4 to 0-2 after 25 minutes and it looked like everything they had planned in the run-up to their season opener was going to script.

Now, obviously it didn’t stay like that for the whole game. Monaghan got in among them and disrupted their rhythm and started lashing in goals from everywhere. Dublin tightened up a little and started holding on to the ball for longer and went back to their rotational possession game to try and regain some control over proceedings.

But it will be interesting to keep an eye on them in the coming weeks. Clearly, they want to make use of their kick-passing from midfield – Dessie Farrell said afterwards that Kilkenny might be used in that position a bit more – and the fact that O’Callaghan is such a good ball-winner inside. The question is, can they stick to it? If they can – and not retreat to their old ways when the opposition get their tails up – it will be fun to watch. – Malachy Clerkin

No change on the western front

It’s funny how with certain football relationships, people are reluctant to take obvious evidence as a starting point. There’s no better example than Galway v Mayo, which is one of those match-ups that prompts more speculative criteria. Either county has been “too quiet” or as at the weekend, “won’t want to lose another one of these”.

Guilty as charged, my preview waffled about Galway “setting the record straight” after last year when they didn’t win any of the four encounters with the neighbours.

This was despite Mayo manager Kevin McStay speaking openly about the relief of not having any long-term injury and being in good shape. Galway on the other hand have a raft of injury concerns, including some of their most important players.

When Damien Comer was pulled from Sunday’s selection because of a knock sustained at training, it meant that Pádraic Joyce was without three of his five All Stars from 2022: Comer, Liam Silke and the year’s FOTY nominee Cillian McDaid, plus their captain and arguably most influential player, Seán Kelly.

Whereas there was some relief with Seán Mulkerrin back fully fit and starting after a year out and Kieran Molloy similarly, Joyce knows that he is unlikely to have Mayo’s capacity to field strongest selections at any stage in the league.

The Galway manager must reflect ruefully on his league experiences. In his very first year, everything shut down in early March as the coronavirus pandemic took hold. By that stage his team were top of the Division One after an impressive start, on eight points from five matches, one ahead of Kerry and with a big scoring difference of +22.

The two remaining fixtures would not be played until October and the first of them ended in a 15-point defeat by Mayo. A few weeks later and the Connacht final was narrowly lost to the same opponents.

So, if Sunday wasn’t the worst league outcome against Mayo for the Galway manager, neither was it the worst opening day experience. In 2021, his team got drubbed by 22 points in Tralee at the pandemic-delayed start of the season that May.

By the end of the competition, they were relegated despite leading Monaghan by five on 68 minutes in the playoff only for their opponents to be still standing after extra-time, condemning Joyce to Division Two for the following year.

On Sunday afternoon, you could sense that the Galway manager just wanted to get through the league and have his best team available for championship in order to improve on the stark record of one win from his now eight league and championship encounters with Mayo.

“We will learn from it and move on. We’ve seven days to lick our wounds, move on and get points next week.”

There will, however, be no relief from the Western Circuit with a trip to Roscommon next up. – Seán Moran

Fly goalies add to the thrills in Tralee

As the season progresses it will be fascinating to follow the fortunes of roaming goalkeepers. In Tralee on Saturday night Derry and Kerry gave their goalies a licence to be part of the build-up play, and both Shane Ryan and Odhrán Lynch embraced it with a sense of adventure.

For a berserk moment in the first half Shane McGuigan, Derry’s full forward, was closer to his own goal than Lynch, the Derry goalie. Lynch was on the ball.

The perils of the practice, though, were exposed in the second half when Kerry pushed up on the Derry kick-out and chased turnovers in the Derry half. Kerry’s first goal was finished into an empty net after Brendan Rogers failed to secure a pass from Lynch, and the Derry goalie was caught out of his ground.

A few minutes earlier Lynch was complicit in another turnover around the Derry 45-metre line where he brought down Seán O’Shea before anything could develop. The goal chance was snuffed out but at the risk of a black card. O’Shea landed the resultant free. In a tight game 1-1 was a lot to concede from a roaming goalie.

Will teams finally start going after them? Surely. – Denis Walsh

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