Enda McEvoy: The monster is back. This season, more than ever, let's pace ourselves

'There will be time,' TS Eliot assured us once. With a Premier League campaign stretching through to late May, there surely will. We may even end up gasping for some terrible gaelic football by the end of it all

Devils and details: How many Harry Maguire howlers and Cristiano Ronaldo strops will this marathon season contain? The mind boggles. Pic: PA Wire

If you want to blame someone for the theme of the next 900 words – and frankly I’m approaching the subject with a heavy heart meself even before a ball has been kicked, give or take the one used at Selhurst Park last night – then you may as well point the finger at the GAA. Or the pandemic. Or both.

Were this 2019 the All-Ireland championships would be reaching a climax and we’d have loads to talk about. The usual loads. Who’ll lift the silverware. Who said what, and who didn’t say anything at all, at the various media evenings. The deplorable state of gaelic football, why oh why does it continue to exist and why is it far inferior to hurling. You know the kind of thing yourself. We’ve been over these fences before.