Football is in dire need of a third way

Do you remember the days when the All-Ireland football champions set the template for everyone else?

In 2002, Armagh got the country practising long, diagonal balls. A year later, the sale of tackle bags rocketed as Tyrone highlighted the effectiveness of ‘the swarm’.

As ever, Kerry were the first to ‘adapt’. In his autobiography Keys to the Kingdom, Jack O’Connor revealed how he recruited the services of a coach from Ulster. Jack wanted Kerry to tackle like Tyrone so he got the northerner (who we understand was from Tyrone) to show him the tackling drills that Kerry weren’t doing.