Any team getting to this stage of the National League is always in two minds: whether to have a real cut at it or hold back and concentrate on championship preparation. If you can keep winning, good, or if you keep training, equally good but the danger is in falling between two stools - disrupting championship plans and then getting the knock-back of a defeat nearer to the summer.

The further you go in the league, the harder it is to see it as a blessing. Even if you win it outright, you're creating a mood of celebration in the middle of May which is a distraction. Lose and it's a setback.

In our case last year, reaching the quarter-finals and losing was useful. We'd had a roller-coaster year, were unbeaten and being built up to the point where we were even believing it ourselves. Positive things can come out of losing.

Maybe I'm biased because it worked for us. The match against Offaly was good preparation and we could have won it because we created chances but weren't clinical enough. Certain other frailties were exposed and we had time to go off and work on them.

That was definitely our most informative match. After Christmas last year, we played a sequence of games against weaker teams, games we won easily. What was learned in the Offaly match was the final piece of teambuilding information.

This year we're happy to have it out of the way and have retained our Division One status. We finished on a positive note by winning a match we had to win. Playing the league after winning an All-Ireland is very different. For the first matches we were on automatic pilot and then we seemed to hit a barrier.

There's a sense in the games after the All-Ireland that opponents feel a certain admiration for what you've achieved. This quickly turns into a sense that you're being looked on as a target. We certainly found that.

Against Donegal we won a game we really shouldn't have won. But confidence and teamwork levels were high. We went into the match afterwards thinking this was going to happen all the time. Armagh brought us back into the real world where you have to work for what you get.

In general, I think the league could be structured better. The introduction of scoring averages hasn't benefited the game. If you look at the games that would have come about by organising playoffs instead, it's obvious that they would have attracted widespread interest.

Roscommon, for instance, would have got more out of playing Kerry for a quarter-final place than they could have got from playing us for the third time in the FBD League. Subsidiary competitions could be cut back just a little to create more space for play-offs.

I don't agree either with next year's second division teams not being allowed to contest the later stages of the league. I don't know how the teams in the lower divisions feel about it but when people talk about the levelling in football standards, they're mainly talking about the league.

I'm afraid the competition might lose its edge like the B championship. Separating the National League into first and second division competitions runs the risk of restricting ambition amongst the teams in the lower divisions.

Laois won the league from Division Three and Mayo reached the semi-finals and went on to play in the All-Ireland final after spending the league in Division Three. Up-and-coming teams won't have that option next year.

Galway played three of this weekend's quarter-finalists during the league. Dublin were probably the team most focused on the league and tomorrow is a big test. It's not crucial for them to win the league but it is crucial to develop their championship challenge by confirming good young players.

Our Parnell Park game with Dublin was a very, very good game for the spectator but for Tommy Carr and myself it wasn't so good.

Both teams had dominant periods and those watching might have been lulled into thinking we were back or that Dublin have solved all their problems but championship football wouldn't be as loose as that.

Cork beat us but have blown hot and cold. I believe there's a huge determination there to have a good summer and to be fair to them, they won the game against Dublin when they had to. They beat Donegal up there and did get good results against the odds.

Liam Honohan is back and Damien O'Neill is on the way back but only the championship will confirm Cork's credentials. I thought we played reasonably well against Cork even though they deserved their win. After the next match against Tyrone I wondered had we in fact improved or how were Cork, but they showed a lot of commitment that day against us.

This is a big year for Armagh and they impressed me quite a lot. They've been close in recent years but things haven't worked out. The minors of 1992 should be peaking around now and Crossmaglen's players have yet to come back into the team. It will be interesting how they approach this weekend and it mightn't be the end of the world for them if they lose.

They will be favourites, particularly as Sligo have left off their under-21s. That's surprising as they haven't been in a quarterfinal for a long, long time. If they hadn't reached the Connacht under-21 final, Sligo would be going for this game bald-headed.

Leaving out first-team players is a sign of confidence in the team's reserves - but more a sign of the total priority being given to winning the under-21. When Mickey Moran came into Sligo, he took over the under-21s as well.

Under-age is important in counties like Sligo where you have to blood players early. I saw it when I was manager in Leitrim. You have a number of players who have been playing senior football since they were 17 and 18. In stronger counties, it would be unusual to have players in their mid-20s with seven and eight years experience.

I wouldn't have withdrawn the under-21s in a similar situation, especially with a week in the difference. The Connacht final was put back from today because Sligo were involved in the league quarter-finals.

In the other game, I don't know a great deal about Meath's and Kerry's form at the moment but I imagine it would suit Paidi O Se better to get another outing in the league. Meath have a number of injuries and I'm not sure they're fully focused on the League.

JOHN O'MAHONY has joined The Irish Times sports team and will provide, together with established analyst John O'Keeffe, commentary on the football season as it unfolds. O'Mahony is one of the most successful managers in the modern game and has led three counties to Connacht titles in a career culminating in Galway's All-Ireland triumph of last September - Connacht's first title in 32 years.