Net gains: Rising currency of goals in Gaelic football

Champions Dublin have shown the value of scoring goals in Gaelic football and it looks like the chasing pack has cottoned on, writes Kieran Shannon

Cormac Costello of Dublin scores his side's second goal during the Allianz League draw with Kerry last weekend. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

They still matter. In football anyway. And even more so this year, it already appears.

Goals the last few years in hurling seem to have become merely optional, almost a luxury item. In 2017 Galway, who had been the championship’s leading goalscorers over the span of the previous three seasons, pivoted, deciding that not only they did not need Joe Canning playing close to goal but they didn’t need goals at all, and duly delivered their first All-Ireland since 1988 by raising only white flags in the last four games of the campaign.