The madness of the All-Ireland Football Championship continued last weekend with four entertaining quarter-finals.
There were plenty of thrills and spills and upsets across the weekend.
It’s hard to believe that Louth and Mayo will square off in a semi-final but they have both earned their spots.
Dublin have come strong at the right time and while Kerry are clear favourites now, they haven’t had it all their own way.
Louth were probably the story of the weekend when you consider they had Sean Callaghan sent off after only six minutes.
It’s so challenging in the modern game when you have a player sent off but Louth did superbly and their young lads like James Maguire and Dara McDonnell.
Rory Beggan didn’t play for Monaghan and he was a huge loss but they allowed the game to be chaotic.
They lost kick-out after kick-out at the end of the game when they just couldn’t find their extra man.
Louth have brought serious energy to the championship and in Sam Mulroy, Ryan Burns and Ciaran Downey they have scoring forwards.
Ciaran Byrne has had terrible luck with injuries but he’s giving serious impact off the bench, and not every team is getting that.
Louth have real momentum now. They had one bad day against Dublin but got revenge a few weeks later.
Since then they have taken out Armagh and Monaghan and will be feeling good about themselves.
They will sense an opportunity to make a final but so will Mayo.
It’s been a funny few months for Mayo. They were well beaten by Roscommon and unconvincing against Monaghan.
But they have turned their season around with wins over Meath and Cork.
In fairness to Andy Moran, he made a few changes to the team like bringing in Jack Livingstone in goal and he has been very good.
He has dropped Aidan O’Shea and it looks like he has been building a team for Croke Park.
Kobe McDonald is so exciting and Darragh Beirne is another quality forward.
Ryan O’Donoghue is still doing his business but they aren’t relying on him like before and Tommy Conroy appears to have rediscovered his spark as well.
Kobe will head off to Australia in a few weeks and that will be a real pity but he will be hoping to finish the campaign with a bang.
Cork were poor and they just don’t score enough when they need to.
There probably was a lot of frustration in Donegal watching that game as losing that day in Ballybofey after being seven points up really turned the season.
Donegal then went on to lose to Dublin, and the boys from the capital backed that up last week against Galway.
That was a surprise but from midfield up, the Dubs have huge threats.
Niall Scully is playing the football of his life, Con O’Callaghan is sharp, and Colm Basquel is getting back to his best.
Brian Howard, Paddy Small and Ciaran Kilkenny are all contributing.
I’m still not convinced about their defence but they have improved and in Charlie McMorrow, they have a really exciting half-back.
Galway
Galway have come up short again and it’s hard to know why they can’t push on.
They tick a lot of the boxes. Sean Kelly was a massive loss and they didn’t get near enough from their forwards.
They also have trouble with their goalkeeper. Conor Gleeson boomed the ball long but Galway didn’t win enough of them.
Tyrone lost out by four points against Kerry but that doesn’t tell the full story.
They were only one down heading into the last minute and Kerry then got a goal.
The Red Hands were up for it and they had Kerry in trouble.
There’s no doubt that a couple of big decisions went against them. You wonder how the ‘45’ call can be wrong like that at such a big moment in the match.
Tyrone showed their battling qualities and they must wonder how things would have played out if they started Niall Devlin out on David Clifford.
Cormac Quinn couldn’t handle Clifford but Devlin battled well in the second half.
In fairness to Malachy O’Rourke, it wasn’t looking good during the spring but he got that group together.
He wasn’t able to call upon the two Canavans and they will be back next year and there’s obviously plenty of talent coming through.
Malachy will want Mattie Donnelly to stay on and Darren McCurry showed his worth by scoring ten points off the bench.
I was listening to an interview where he said he wasn’t able to train much during the season and that’s tough going for a player but he still has loads of quality.
Kerry were fortunate but David Clifford was excellent and Dylan Geaney is really stepping up this year.
While there is a lot of brilliant football on show, I do come away from these games thinking I would hate to be a referee.
The game is quicker now and the ball is in play a lot more and that puts an extra physical strain on the refs.
But they also have more to contend with in terms of the arc, and delay fouls and punishing dissent.
If they get a call wrong, people are onto them straight away, and I’m like anyone else in that.
I wonder if it’s getting to the stage where we need two refs on the pitch.
There’s just so much work, time, effort, and money going into it now and we don’t want to see refereeing errors being the big talking points from a weekend of football.
Club
The Club Championship draws were made last night although they weren’t known at the time of going to print.
I think it’s good for clubs that they know who they will be starting their championships against and it will help to provide focus.
And it will be needed.
A lot of the league football will be finished over the next two weekends, and then you’re left with a month to the championship.
There have been clubs squeezing games in on a Thursday night and then maybe playing again at the weekend, and yet there will be all these free weeks now.
Coaches will look at that as a good chance to get a block of training done but from my experience players want to be playing games.
Regular readers of this column will know that I’m not a great fan of the split season.
And since counties started being knocked out over the last few weeks we have seen a huge exodus to America to play football over there.
Those lads will be getting games every week over the States, while the football here is being parked up for a month.
It doesn’t make sense to me and if I was a club player, I would be frustrated.
People might say well at least it’s a chance for young lads to get a holiday.
But from speaking to people all over the county, plenty of teams have been missing boys due to holidays in May and June.
There aren’t too many young lads that will be able to afford to go away at the most expensive time in July.
The list of players heading away on sanctions is staggering and there will be some great football played in Boston and Chicago.
But the other side of it is that a lot of players will probably miss the first round or two of the Club Championship here.
That might leave their club under pressure and the star names will be parachuted back into the team and some poor fella who has been training all year will be benched.
I do get that it’s a long year for county players and there is a chance for a small break now but a lot of club players will be getting no games during the best weather in the year.