You can’t have a Super 8 in summer and another in spring

If you’re among those worried at how football is now stuck with the Super Eight when the past two weekends has starkly illustrated that it simply has a Super Four, it’s worth bearing something in mind to appease your fears, says Kieran Shannon.

Part of Páraic Duffy’s reasoning in coming up with the Super Eight was in acknowledging the brilliance — even superiority — of a select few teams. If Dublin, Kerry, Mayo and Tyrone were the best exponents of football in the country, then let them play each other more often. Let the rest of us see them bounce off each more often. In risking the creation of the odd extra landslide and even occasional dead rubber, all that would be outweighed by the virtual guarantee of more crackers and nailbiters.

Over the previous two summers, there have been eight championship clashes between the Big Four. Only two of them finished up with more than two points between the teams: The 2015 monsoon All Ireland semi-final in which a late Kerry spurt saw them beat Tyrone by four points when the hits and pace were as intense and unrelenting as the rain, and a week later, when Dublin saw off Mayo in a replay in which the latter had been a goal up going into the last quarter of the game. On either of those days, there weren’t many hurling snobs tweeting about the superiority of their own game. Dublin-Mayo or Dublin-Kerry would make a convert of anyone.