The day traditional football broke out in Croke Park

There’s been much discussion and debate in recent weeks about both the structures of the championship and the quality of games we have seen to date.

These debates have stemmed from a lack of competitive championship football and a worrying increase of teams going to the blanket defence and slow hand-passing style of play. We’re seeing match stats now where teams hand-pass the ball nearly twice as many times as they kick it. However yesterday’s Leinster semi-final between Meath and Wexford bucked the trend, as ‘traditional’ a game as you will see. There was no sign of any mass defence or sweepers; it was the very essence of man-on-man football. It was refreshing to see and made for very interesting viewing.

With both teams willing to play like this, it shows both sets of management had enough trust in their players to deliver a performance without implementing any complicated systems or game plans to get the job done. Wexford, who were coming off a very good victory away to Louth, in the previous round got to grips with things slightly quicker than Meath via the platform given them by their midfielders, Daithi Waters and Rory Quinlivan.