Structures support team plans

Status of National Football League: At Thursday's media launch for this year's Allianz National Football League the backdrop display was a montage of victorious captains hoisting the trophy for each of the 11 years since the sponsorship began. On only two occasions did the winning county add the All-Ireland in the months that followed.

GAA president Seán Kelly in his speech congratulated the sponsors on sticking with the league through the times when few seemed to take it seriously, explicitly referencing Tyrone's league and championship double last year as evidence the spring competition now had a confirmed relevance.

It takes more than an isolated double achievement to substantiate that claim, but there are grounds for believing a paradigm shift is taking place in terms of how the National Football League operates within the football year.

Kelly also mentioned a crucial aspect of any change: the perception that, far from benefiting a team, league success could undermine championship prospects. There was good reason to believe this in the past.

The accompanying table shows the fate of league winners since 1990, the last year in which the All-Ireland was retained. Only two went on to win the double and the manner of the others' defeats is instructive. In most cases that defeat came in a big match against a team with equally valid championship ambitions.

Meath's Com O'Rourke said of the wins in 1990 and '94 that no matter how much a county tried to put a league final in perspective it still operated as a major occasion and depleted what he saw as a team's finite stock of big-match resources. His theory is supported by the way in which the overwhelming majority of league winners from the 1990s came up short in major box-office events during the championship against teams that had adopted a lower-key approach to the earlier competition.

Ironically, two Meath victories illustrate this as well as anything. The 1991 championship defeat of recent league winners Dublin over four matches has passed into legend. And the 1998 blitzing of Offaly within a fortnight of that county's first league win was a classic example of a team lying in wait - in this case since the previous Leinster final when the result had been the other way around.

It's also possible to place in context what until last year was the only league and championship double of the period, Kerry's win in 1997. Munster football teams - essentially Cork and Kerry - always had one crucial advantage in combining success. Their provincial championship was the least demanding of the four.

Seven years ago after winning the league the only championship fixtures Kerry had for the best part of four months before their first major contest (the All-Ireland semi-final against Cavan). During that time they had two Munster matches, against Tipperary and Clare - neither to be underestimated but neither an elite challenge.

So what has changed to make the league more compatible with the championship? There are two principal influences, both in their infancy, one concerning the structure of the league and the other the structure of the championship.

In 2001, the league moved to a calendar-year format and the All-Ireland qualifier series was introduced. It's hard to overestimate the impact these reforms have had on the way the league is approached. Previously teams - including counties that had gone the distance in the championship - had to present in October for the start of the league. There were wildly fluctuating standards of preparation and then, after three or four matches, it would all shut down in December and January.

This was vexatious for everyone. Teams weary from a long championship run had no desire to be back on the field within a matter of weeks, whereas teams that had prepared well had their momentum destroyed by the break. It is now possible for county managers to treat the year as a proper season with a gathering rhythm as the weeks go by. Training programmes are consequently more coherent.

Tyrone's double last year has a further significance that may well prove long-term. Reflecting on his All-Ireland success in its immediate aftermath last September, manager Mickey Harte outlined his team's approach.

"Training has been about quality rather than quantity, something we'd preached a long time. I think it's great to show that you can get to All-Ireland level training just two nights a week and one game at the weekend.

"The other interesting statistic is that yesterday was our 21st match and we never played a single challenge in the entire year. I think it's very valuable to be playing in the national league up to the concluding stages."

At Thursday's launch he reiterated his belief in making reduced demands on players' time by prescribing conditioning exercises that can be conducted on an individual's own time without having to attend collective training until there's a stretch in the evenings.

This training schedule developed fitness while reducing the time commitment and incorporated competitive matches, be they in the McKenna Cup or league, as an integral part of preparation.

Obviously no team can depend on reaching the league final every year, but Harte said that his disregard for challenge matches wouldn't be affected.

Good example frequently doesn't get followed when managers are assessing the desirability of the latest training fads - and Harte was disarmingly open to the suggestion his own methods could come into that category. But in this case the approach is in keeping with the concerns of sports science practitioners whose opinions are of increasing importance.

Tyrone and Armagh - who have sustained two seasons of league play-offs and going the distance in the All-Ireland - may not have devised guaranteed methods of preparation, but there is now ample evidence that a team can have a successful league without undermining its championship prospects, something that was not the case pre-2001.

The impact of the qualifier series is equally significant. In the past, with championship completely based on the sudden-death format, a summer season was a matter of building up meticulously to a limited number of big, gladiatorial contests.

Now even with the limited dilution of that format, teams have to play more matches so the demands have to change. There's now more of an emphasis on quick recovery and being able to play a greater number of matches with shorter intervals in between.

Tyrone were able to establish this rhythm. Success in the league was doubtless of psychological importance, but the real benefit was physical, learning how to build a season around matches rather than around training. The next step - however far into the future - is to guarantee teams this opportunity by providing a minimum number of matches leading up to and through the summer.

There is also the issue of upwards mobility. Since 2001 the league has become visibly more democratic.

Counties like Westmeath, Limerick and Wexford have qualified for Division One for the first time. Whereas it's not possible yet to establish an empirical link between the qualifier system and these successes, one of those involved has no doubts.

After Limerick's momentous defeat of Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last summer, manager Liam Kearns was emphatic about the beneficial effect of the qualifier system.

It's easy to see why. Under the old system teams looking for a breakthrough got one match to do it. If they failed it was back to the drawing board and no competition until the league season. Under the qualifier system there is the opportunity to learn from the championship defeat and go and apply the lessons immediately.

With a good draw - something Limerick didn't get last year - that experience can be prolonged with the result that a far more confident and ambitious side lines up for the following league.

It's too early to be definitive, but signs are that the football year is gradually taking on a more coherent direction and that the league is becoming part of the track, rather than a misleading cul-de-sac.