It's been raining goals so far this year and Kerry’s increasing taste for them could be what moves them from challengers to champions.
It’s easy to focus on Peter Keane’s side in that respect after they hit Tyrone for six last Saturday but, taking a wider view, the rate of goal-scoring rocketed in the League.
There were 45 green flags raised in just four rounds of Division One matches. It’s a huge tally, particularly when compared to last year’s competition where there were only four goals more scored across seven rounds.
Kerry and Dublin have led the way with 13 and eight goals respectively, accounting for almost half the total.
When we came up against Dublin over the past decade or so, it became clear that to beat them we’d have to hit the 20-point mark. We never quite got there.
After beating them in 2012 with 0-19 in Pat Gilroy’s last game in charge, the highest tally we managed against Jim Gavin’s Dublin was 1-16 in 2017. We lost by a point. It was probably our best performance in that era and still it wasn’t enough.
When you play against the better sides you’re inevitably going to have less of the ball. So, in those circumstances, goals are a necessity rather than a bonus.
In Dublin’s last two All-Ireland finals, they’ve conceded 0-15 to Mayo and Kerry and scored 2-14 and 1-18 respectively - at or just above 20 points. That’s where the water mark is.
Getting there yourself is another matter but goal-scoring appears to be more in vogue than ever.
Increasingly, teams are hunting them down, none more so than Kerry.
They were devastating last Saturday. There was a rich variety to their six goals and it sent out a strong statement. They were chipping the ‘keeper, rampaging through the middle, transferring possession rapidly through the hands to slice the defence open and landing a high ball in on Tommy Walsh for the last one.
Their movement and unselfishness, always giving the ball to the man in the best position, is a sign of a team hungry for success.
This was particularly evident with their two best players - David Clifford and Sean O’Shea, who put goals on a plate for Dara Moynihan and Paul Geaney. Clifford and O’Shea are deadly finishers in their own right but they wanted to give their team the best possible chance of scoring a goal.
It also suggests that they’re learning, particularly from the Cork experience last year when Kerry didn’t put them away and paid dearly.
Their desire to right the wrongs of 2020 appears to have developed that killer instinct. They want to blow teams away and bridge that gap to the Dubs. They seem to be ready for the challenge.
With the footballing public having been starved of action for so much of the last year, a Dublin-Kerry League final would have been quite the prospect heading into the Championship.
But I get the feeling that, come August, this will have been one worth waiting for.
Lack of Games
Inter-county footballers have been shortchanged by the number of games they’re getting this summer.
There have been some great matches since the League started last month but, already, most counties have played the majority of their games.
A knockout Championship may be exciting for the fans but it’s a disaster for counties that are trying to develop. Half of them will only have played five games in 2021, all within the space of a few weeks.
What’s that going to do for the promotion of the game in the weaker counties? County teams are the best marketing tool for the game and only seeing the best players in each county playing together for a very short period of time flies in the face of that.
Yes, I accept that Covid-19 has wreaked havoc and you’re never going to please everyone, but after players had kept their bodies in such good nick for months on end, they deserved more than five games.
Hero to Zero
Was there a better day of sport in 2020 than November 20, when Tipperary and Cavan were crowned provincial champions?
It warmed the hearts of the nation, unless you had the misfortune of being from Cork or Donegal. I really loved Cavan’s sheer tenacity and the style and quality that Tipp played with.
But less than eight months later, they’re both now heading for Division Four. It’s an incredible fall from grace and you’d have to wonder what happened to Cavan’s drive and why Tipperary couldn’t unlock a Longford defence that had conceded 0-21 to Derry.
There will be a lot of soul-searching in both counties in the coming weeks.
Old Maestros
It's almost 17 years since Jack O’Connor and John Maughan shared a sideline in the All-Ireland final.
O’Connor was in his first season as a senior inter-county manager though Maughan was a veteran at that stage having taken over Clare 14 years before that.
But they’re both still at it and have brought their vast experience to bear with O’Connor taking Kildare back to Division One at the weekend, while Maughan guided Offaly out of Division Three at long last.
Kildare are a sleeping giant and O’Connor seems to be getting a tune out of them now and while there may be a level of surprise at Offaly’s progress, having played under Maughan, it’s certainly no shock to me that they’re moving in the right direction.
