The game to rescue football?

There is unseen, maybe even unmentioned pressure on Sunday’s All-Ireland final protagonists to deliver some kind of spectacle. And I mean the good kind.

The only chance of rescuing this year’s football championship is a game that holds our attention for most of the 70 minutes. Tyrone must make Dublin earn it. This must be competitive.

Don’t hold your breath.

Gaelic football has been struggling for a number of years now. It has now reached the stage where even close matches are short on entertainment value. Perennial champions Dublin are somewhat immune from criticism, although ironically their current strength might be to blame for where we are now, because the rest of the country do not feel confident enough to take them on.

The poor Dubs are now reduced to finishing out games by playing handball around the middle of the field as their opponents, behind by about 12 points, care more about not losing by 15 than reducing the leeway.

It is that bad.

I suspect tickets won’t be that hard to come by this weekend around Dublin because neutrals will be in short supply. Could you blame them?

One of my earliest sporting memories was the All-Ireland football final of 1974. I was all of five-and-a-half, we had just gotten a colour television and that game transfixed me. Liam Sammon had a pivotal penalty for Galway and Micheal O’Hehir’s commentary will always stay in my head, right before he kicked it: “Paddy Cullen, heaven help him inside in the goal. Liam Sammon, who has never missed a penalty.”

The save followed and I was hooked.

I’ve been to 21 All-Ireland football finals since and to be honest, I cannot get enthused about this one.

Trouble is I’m not alone. This isn’t hurling snobbery. Football can be enthralling, wonderfully intense and compelling. It has held our gaze before. But today it is merely a passing glance.

The 1997 Leinster football final between Offaly and Meath finished 3-17 to 1-15 to the Faithful and it was one of the most enjoyable GAA games I was ever at, in both codes. It was pulsating, exuberant, fast and filled with drama on a summer Saturday night. Where did that go? Where did those two giants of football go? And the rest?

They went the way of the game itself, into the wilderness, while what we have now has taken its place. Faceless football, devoid of instinct. This is not worth celebrating or protecting. It has gotten away from us.

Blame

Mickey Harte and Jim Gavin are not to blame. They are merely playing the 15 they are dealt, when in fact we’re all to blame. It has happened on our watch and the urgency of winning by not losing has taken the game hostage.

The ransom to be paid is major surgery and not the cosmetic kind of the mark or black cards. It must be of the open heart variety. And the patient hasn’t long left.

Rome has been burning for a few years now as optimism and ambition have been replaced by the numbing pragmatism of managers at almost every level. We need to take it back.

That’s not what we should be talking about the week of an All-Ireland football final. But in truth this is the gist of the conversation in 30 counties. Our best hope of real entertainment on Sunday is the minor match between Galway and Kerry because 16- and 17-year-olds still have innocence, purity and joy in their football.

So will the footballers of Tyrone and Dublin make an eejit of my doomsaying? Will a football match break out during the game of human chess we are expecting? I sincerely hope so. I really do.

Outcome

But, try as I might I see no other scenario than a Dublin victory and a comfortable one at that. The winning margin will be up to them, not Tyrone, and if the mood takes, they could finally win an All-Ireland in comfort.

The fact that they have only won their previous five by a kick of the ball is one of Tyrone’s few lifelines, that and Harte’s record in finals.

The Dubs do have a tendency to tighten up as the finish line draws near, but that shouldn’t take away from the statistic that matters the most, this squad have won all five All-Ireland finals they have contested. It’s what they do.

Their opposition in those finals were better than this Tyrone team too, with patently more ambition. Those Kerry (twice) and Mayo (three times) sides all brought physicality and skill, enough to trouble the champions to the end. This jury is far from convinced that we have seen any evidence to suggest Tyrone can summon the performance needed to unsettle a team of greats.

Those harbouring hopes of the shock of the century to date will point to their Super 8 meeting in Omagh when Dublin only won by three points in a tense encounter.

There are some grounds there for optimism but let’s not forget that Dublin never really looked like losing that game, Tyrone only emerging from the shell in rare forays.

Strangely enough this summer Dublin have not looked that tuned in, winning games comfortably enough but not flowing to the final, like they have in years gone by. I’m inclined to think that the Dubs have been saving their best for last.

They won their Leinster championship matches by an average of 20 points, but that reduced to eight in the Super 8, with those scorelines flattering park the bus merchants Donegal and Tyrone.

At times they have looked like they have been going through the motions, but there is no question of that happening with a thronged Hill 16 and Sam Maguire staring down at them from the Hogan Stand. There isn’t a case for Mickey Harte’s overmatched side.

If that is to be their plight then please let them go out not in a straightjacket in their own half, but instead with all guns blazing. Rescuing this football championship may be beyond both teams, but with the right attitude they could save this All-Ireland final.