Now let the real games begin

THANK God the championships are upon us again. The dark days are over at last.

Soon we will have the good wholehearted and wholesomely meaty challenges of GAA championship clashes to relish from now until September, the skills and the thrills of our own games blazing from all the provinces from this until the leaves fall and the new champions are crowned. Great.

Me? I’ve had more than enough of over-hyped substitute codes. I’ve seen too many naked drunken backsides outside nightclubs in recent weeks as millionaire soccer stars misbehaved.

I have seen enough on-field petulance and tantrums too. Especially I have seen enough of Didier Drogba. Here is a big powerful man, physically gifted, who dives to Mother Earth if he is even brushed against and feigns serious injury four or five times during every game. And here is a player who effs and blinds into TV cameras in between trying to intimidate a referee.

If he had properly executed the work for which he is paid millions there would have been no need at all for those scandalous after-match scenes which have been a talking point since.

Enough of that. Enough too for now of the alleged “dark arts” of another code I dealt with here last week.

Let’s move on from there.

There is just one element of the Heineken Cup semi-final which heartens me immensely in relation to the upcoming championships. It is the perennial and beautiful reality in all sports that the form book is there to be occasionally ripped asunder.

It is NOT guaranteed that Kilkenny will win Liam MacCarthy again. It is NOT written in stone that Kerry and Tyrone will contest the battle for Sam Maguire come the fall. It is indeed a long thrilling time from May to September as Maurice Chevalier told us. It is never over until all the back doors are closed and the fat lady sings. And that is the excitement of it all.

The expert opinion is already dismissing the Leinster challenge in football as solidly as it is endorsing the mighty Leinster hurling champions to go all the way again. But think back across even recent seasons and relish the reality of all those upsets that occur in both codes Sunday after Sunday. Tipperary have already showed some of their fangs. Is there another kick in Fitzy’s team from Waterford? Galway’s gifted but erratic hurlers are unpredictable. Wexford can go from zero to 90 every bit as quickly as they can go from 90 to zero. Given the fact we are now dealing with finely honed and conditioned athletes from all the leading counties in both codes, even the most experienced analysts get it wrong more often now than they used to.

You just never can tell.

Some would claim that the real raw edge was torn out of both championships by the provision of the back door and the end of the sudden death era. It was arguable for several seasons but not any more. My own county, Fermanagh, is just one of the Cinderella teams to have hugely benefited directly from the back door campaigns. They brought followers who regularly used get only one Sunday out of the championship all the way to Croke Park and the semi-final five years ago. Like many other teams that got a second bite of the cherry because of the re-entry system they grew up along the way, gave a lot of joy to followers countrywide, and their run emphasised the continuing unexpected dimension that the back door has brought to both codes.

It has produced its eventual champions in recent years and there is no sense at all those sides were lesser champions just because they lost one game at the start of the season. The Ernesiders’ campaign this year is one of the early ones, against redoubtable Down. Hope springs eternal and, one way or the other, they, like similar sides down in the lower reaches will get that priceless second bite at the cherry if they need it. Look at the pleasure similar teams like Wexford have given us more recently. It could happen again this year. In fact it probably will.

There is something apt about the fact Mayo have already started their campaign with a successful trip to New York and neighbours and fierce rivals Galway are in London at the end of the month for their opener.

Both counties supplied and supply still the backbones of the overseas sides. Galway are not going to lose to London nor to Sligo either in the next round.

It could well be that Leitrim will overcome Roscommon (again) but find Mayo too hot to handle afterwards and so there is every possibility that we will have the perennial Connacht Final clash between the big two.

If there is ever a day when Mayo play out of their skins it is a final against Galway but, for the long haul beyond that, Galway are seen as a better bet by most people in the battle for ultimate glory. One way or the other it has been too long since Sam Maguire crossed the Shannon heading west.

I have a gut feeling that the real surprises will happen in Leinster this year. At the end of the summer it could well be that Dublin will have lost their title. Forget the league stats. This is a different ball game.

Could this be the season of another Offaly rising? When they come they always come powerfully out of nowhere. Their first clash with Kildare will signal a lot. How long before Meath have completed rebuilding? They meet Dublin in Croke Park at the beginning of June. Dublin should win but will they? There have been a lot of sensational upsets caused by either of these two. A fascinating clash.

And the Leinster teams in the qualifiers will cause some shocks too.

The experts will say that when the dust settles and the leaves have fallen it will be the men from Tyrone and the Kingdom’s best who fill Croke Park. The experts are often wrong at this time of year. I think that one of them will be missing from the equation with Tyrone the most likely absentees. They host Armagh in their first outing.

That one will tell us a lot about the summer shape of the fiery and unpredictable Ulster cockpit. So many fascinating dimensions !to look forward to.

The Cork hurlers have been in the headlines all winter for all the wrong reasons.

They have Tipperary for lunch in Thurles at the end of the month. That is going to be mouthwatering and so will be the battle between Limerick and Waterford a fortnight later at the same venue. Nobody can confidently call either of these in advance. Many claim that either Tipp or Cork will find Clare less hot to handle now than hitherto. Could Limerick surprise a lot of folk before the summer is over? We have to just wait and see.

It is powerful it begins again. It banishes many facets of the current recession a little bit further into the shadows. It is good for the sporting soul.

Enough of the bared drunken asses of the soccer millionaires. Enough of the ducking and diving and tantrums.

The real games are back.