Let’s not ignore positive elements of football

For those of you who initially thought last Sunday’s Ulster final was another desecration of what was once known as Gaelic football, a question — name a game in recent memory in which both teams helped serve up a greater number of exceptional long-range points than what Tyrone and Donegal did in Clones?

Chances are you’re struggling. Last year’s Dublin-Mayo replay might spring to mind, with some of the bombs the O’Connor brothers and the Dublin attack fired over that evening, along with James McCarthy’s point that brought Dublin back to within three points just before their flurry of goals left Mayo gone in 60 seconds.

Twelve months earlier Paul Flynn and Diarmuid Connolly fleetingly appeared as if they were going to make a mockery of Donegal’s famed massed defence before gradually The System wore them down and Odhrán MacNiallais and Michael Murphy successfully launched some scud missiles of their own through the posts at the opposite end.