Paul Rouse: All-Ireland winner? Nothing is inevitable. It is hard to say even what is likely. We are all guessing

A great example of this is Darragh O Sé’s column in The Irish Times on Wednesday, when he put Kerry under the microscope. The tone was set in the opening paragraphs: “When it comes to football, you can’t fool the people down here. You can’t be going around explaining the Meath defeat away because we were down a few bodies. Call us pessimistic or realistic but whatever way you want to look at it, the mood isn’t great.

“Meath are improving, there’s no doubt about that. But if you stand back from it, they’re still a Division Two team and they were missing a few of their best players too. That’s a team you should be dealing with if you have intentions of winning the All-Ireland. The final is in five weeks – if you’re not able to beat an understrength Meath now, how are you going to deal with the bigger tests ahead?” 

His conclusion that Kerry were not just beaten by Meath, but “rightly hosed” is a fair one.

Apart from the first 15 minutes – and possibly 10 minutes early in the second half when Meath had lost a player to a black card – Kerry were really poor.

At the game, it felt that this was much more than being related to the list of absentees (a list which included almost every Kerry supporter). In every aspect of the game, there was a lack of clarity and an absence of intensity.

The kickout and more general midfield concerns are not new. There is much more at issue on the strength of what was on view in Tullamore, however, than just fixing the kickout.

It’s rarely convincing to hear a defeat ascribed to the fact that the winners “wanted it more” or simply “worked harder”.

Nonetheless, when it came to defending, there were Kerry forwards who appeared to adopt a non-combatant approach to tackling. It is easy to blame the defence for not being good enough in one-on-one situations or for being at-sea with the zonal system (and there is at least some truth to both of these things), but defenders were offered very little help from a forward division who allowed too many Meath players saunter on unopposed.

To leave Ciarán Caulfield the freedom of the field was hard to credit. Would any team do the same with Paudie Clifford? Nobody who had seen Meath earlier this year could have been in doubt as to his importance to what Meath are trying to do.

In this – and in almost everything else – Kerry were passive. It’s a fairly remarkable thing to watch a Kerry team play without aggression.

And still, the notion that it is 'inevitable' that Kerry will beat Cavan this weekend, before losing to Armagh a week later in the quarter-final is not right.

It is interesting that the bookmakers still see Kerry as either joint-favourites for the All-Ireland, or second only to Armagh. That is to say, for sure there are huge question marks over Kerry, but there are obvious strengths and they are not the only ones who are facing into the knockout stages with problems.

Here are just some:

1. Armagh are favourites. The logic is that they have a huge panel, are better than last year, and are brilliantly coached. All of that may be true, but they lost the Ulster final to Donegal, lost to Galway last weekend and while there is huge depth to the panel, are they really an intimidating prospect? Basically, the favourites for the All-Ireland have already lost twice.

2. Dublin are increasingly favoured by people who reckon on the strength of their team with the return of Con O’Callaghan, Lee Gannon, and Eoin Murchan, as well as the development of Peadar O Cofaigh-Byrne and Killian McGinnis. They have improved considerably from the league and the Leinster Championship, but they too have lost twice (to Meath and Armagh) and their inconsistency even within games is enough to leave a lot to be guessed at when it comes to the defining moments of the season.

3. Donegal looked in the early rounds of the National League as being the team with the most about them in terms of their potential to maximise the new rules under a manager who previously won the All-Ireland in his second season. They pulled the handbrake in the league, before winning the Ulster Championship. There has been something underwhelming, however, and not just in the loss to Tyrone. Is the balance in the team right? Do they have the midfield sorted? Have they enough physical strength in their backline? Will they hit their straps in Croke Park?

4. Galway lost to Dublin, clung to a draw against Derry and have had key players injured or out of form. They won Connacht narrowly, but could easily have failed to get out of their group. Are they better than last year when they lost a close final? Are they better than three years ago when they also lost a final?

5. Tyrone have more young quality young players coming through than any other county in the competition. But are they ready? Is it a year or two too soon?

6. Monaghan and Meath were on nobody’s list of All-Ireland contenders. But here they are sitting pretty in quarter-finals. Are they to kick on? Will they be the new Armagh?

7. Cork, Louth, Down and Cavan have all been written off as set fair to lose in the preliminary quarter-finals. But the nature of the new rules allows for shocks. The fear that the rule changes would facilitate hammerings has largely proved unwarranted. None of these four are realistic contenders as outright winners, but could they cause a shock by taking out a big team?

To state the obvious: it is exceptionally hard to win a championship.

Even when they were in their pomp, the Dublin 6-in-a-row team struggled to win the All-Ireland. In 2015, they beat Mayo in the semi-final after a reply and beat Kerry only by three points in the final; in 2016, they beat Mayo by a point after a replayed final; in 2017 they beat Mayo by a point in the final; in 2019 they beat Kerry in the final after a replay.

Basically, in four of the six years, the most dominant team in the history of the GAA came perilously close to losing.

As for this year: nothing is inevitable, Indeed, it is hard to say even what is likely. We are all guessing.

*Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin