Overnight revolution is pie in the sky

Keith Duggan/Sideline Cut: The All-Ireland football championship is well and truly up and running by now but so far there has been precious little sign of the "revolution" that had the doomsayers working overtime this winter.

The theory was that in winning the All-Ireland championship, Mickey Harte and Tyrone had employed all kinds of diabolical devices, from the three witches in Macbeth to the hard-tackling corner forward. The accusation was that the invocation of these "tactics" (a word to be spat rather than spoken) would ruin the game and force all other teams to spend the off-season concocting similarly dark arts.

I do not think I was alone in that my heart fairly leapt at the prospect. The mere thought of an outright revolt among the thinkers and preachers in Gaelic football was enough to send a shiver down the spine. The eventuality of Páidi Ó Sé stalking the sideline in a Che Guevara-style beard and combat fatigues was immensely pleasing. Who could not be moved - in whatever way - by the notion of Tommy Lyons and Dave Billings starring in a John and Yoko-inspired sleepover in the front window of Arnotts? And the idea of Billy Morgan lighting up joss sticks in the dressing room and sitting cross-legged on a mat, surrounded by his players for an hour of Eastern meditation brought a tear to the eye.

It is generally accepted that hippiedom, the summer of love and the Timothy Leary school of thought did not infiltrate the culture of the GAA All-Ireland football championship as thoroughly as it might have. To tune in and drop out was to nod off in the car on a hot summer's day to the lyrical sound of Micháel bringing to life Tipperary versus Cork in Thurles. There was no minute's silence for Jim Morrison. The only GAA star from the past 30 years who would not have stood out like a sore thumb at the distant, mythical Woodstock concert was Eoin Liston, whose beard and laid-back Kerry vibe would have been in perfect harmony with the credo of that time. But then who are we fooling: this is the Bomber we are talking about: had his golden years with Kerry coincided with Woodstock, of course he would have stood out. The Bomber, standing among the flower generation with his arms aloft in his green and gold number 14 jersey, would have become the rain god of that festival.

The All-Ireland football championship survived unmolested by the summer of love and also endured the punk era of the 1970s without having to suffer any Mohican-wearing half-forwards and continued into the 1980s and 1990s unfazed by the trends or philosophies of the day.

So the heady talk this year of a genuine revolution, based on theories drawn from all sorts of sundry sources, was intoxicating to say the least. The first manifestation of it ought to have been in Clones a few weeks ago when Derry met All-Ireland champions Tyrone. This is a tie that traditionally tests the sternest of GAA constitutions. Although there were reported sightings of a former-Kerry-football-star-turned-television-star looking wan and pale and swearing that it wasn't the football but the szechaun prawns he had enjoyed the night before in Cavan, it was not a game that caused outrage.

Derry were recognisably Derry. They played 15 men and ran out in the red and white colours of the Oak Leaf county. Mickey Moran was demonstrably Mickey Moran, polite and low key. There was no quoting Marx or vowing that the time to hesitate was through. We scanned the field in vain to search for dreaded tactics. There was no eight-man midfield or, for that matter, no no-man full-forward line.

Tyrone played most of the nice football and it was not altogether dissimilar from football played by previous generations of Tyrone teams and others around the country. Armagh - another county whose robust approach to the game has been called into question in the light of their All-Ireland success - turned out last week and put on a show of admirable, attacking football. The Cavan-Down match was revolutionary in that it was apparently too open and flowing. Throughout the country, other counties have shown up and remained through to their tradition and colours, most notably Kerry in the south.

The fear that Gaelic football would become unrecognisable and unlovable has proven unfounded over the first few weeks. But it is a truism in Gaelic football, as in all sport, that teams react to the methods used by the best. Last season Tyrone married flowing attacks with high-octane defensive efforts that started wherever their opponents took possession and it worked.

The popular response was that all other teams faced the stark choice of adapting a similar style or else losing touch. But there was always a second and third option. Other counties could either adapt to or counter that new departure. The policy of using a "swarming" defence, where backs and forwards combine to isolate and overwhelm opponents in possession, has its downfalls. It is a highly calculated gamble. Once opposing teams know the destination of their next pass before they even get the ball, the limitations of the swarm will be exposed. The swarm defence means that attacking players have to be left free. A solid principle may be borrowed from the basketball maxim that if your man leaves you, go to the goal area and good things will happen.

Mickey Harte, amused by the notion of instilling a revolution in Gaelic football, has already admitted that his system, in so far as there is one, will appear quaint and outdated in the not too distant future.

Rather than close minds, though, Tyrone's success has opened new possibilities. The conventional 1-3-3-2-3-3 system is no longer the absolute and only way. At the moment, the alternative is defensively loaded but the day will come when players are stacked in deep in their opposition territory. The day will come when teams start playing zone defences, covering a designated area of the field rather than an immediate opponent.

The day will come when teams work set pieces from frees and sideline balls. The day will come when teams will have a player who calls those plays, as deliberate and rehearsed as an American football quarterback. All those scenarios will eventually be played out on Gaelic football fields as new ideas are explored in the race to get ahead. And eventually, it will all come full circle and, for a while, the traditional virtues will be decreed the best way.

But an overnight revolution was always going to be pie in the sky. Although frequently decided by random moments - a bad referee's call, a lucky break, a brilliant goal - Gaelic football is governed by an essential conservatism. No doubt many managers have an idea or two up their sleeve this summer but there they will stay unless they really need them. For all the conjecture about a sudden and dramatic shift in the game, there has been no scent of joss sticks in the air so far. Like they say, the revolution will not be televised.