Kerry legend Pat Spillane expects this year's All-Ireland football championship to revert back to the 'old style' after the coronavirus pandemic wreaks havoc with the GAA calender.
With the association's shutdown extended until April 19 at the least, the RTE pundit reckons that the GAA will have to play out the All-Ireland championship with a new format in order to get it done.
Spillane's prediction is that the Allianz League's will be be scrapped as well as a second tier championship - with a straight knockout summer the most likely way to crown an All-Ireland champion by August.
"It's almost certain, I presume, that the League is going to be discarded," Spillane said on RTE 2FM's Game On.
"Which means Meath and Louth avoid relegation, and the bad news for Cork is that they won't get promoted.
"The second tier competition, the Tailteann Cup, that was supposed to come in later in the year, you can forget about that.
"Playing the back-door, and round-robin, and the Super 8s - I think that's all gone. My gut is that for this year, it will revert to straight knock-out, the old style, traditional Championship.
"Straight knockout, it will mean plenty of time for the clubs. You can get all the club activity finished, and it'll mean you can run off the All-Ireland Championships in a much more concise timeframe."
And in a knockout scenario, Spillane even thinks that five-in-row kingpins Dublin might miss out on the decider in a a once-off defeat along the way.
Spillane added: "Back doors and round-robins and Super 8s favour the strong teams, because you might catch a strong county once, but you rarely catch them the second time.
"If it was a straight knockout, is there a strong chance of maybe Dublin being beaten in a once-off All-Ireland semi-final?
"Oh yes there is, far greater than that.
"The only doomsday scenario is if they follow that format, and say Kerry win Munster and Dublin win Leinster, the short straw for winning Munster is to play the Leinster Champions Dublin."
