Gaelic football is thriving like never before

After absorbing another cracking weekend of inter-county football, it gets the mind thinking as to when we’ve had a weekend as good as we’ve just witnessed?

Shock defeats, shock wins, questionable decisions, star players delivering, newer ones arriving on the big stage and an All-Ireland semi-final draw that provides so many more talking points.

Gaelic football is so good right now we just can’t get enough.

The transformation since the arrival of the new rules is remarkable on so many different fronts, and now with a fresh championship structure thrown in for good measure, we have on our hands a product that is delivering in spades for participating counties and fans of all hues.

The weekend just gone by was one of the best in recent memory.

Could anyone have imagined just two weeks ago that the semi-final line-up would not include a team from Ulster?

Could anyone have imagined, sifting through the wreckage after a hammering against Roscommon on home turf in April, that Mayo would be 70 minutes away from an All-Ireland final?

Could anyone have predicted Dublin, having been beaten by Westmeath and then Louth, would turn things around by overcoming Donegal and Galway on back to back weekends?

And, the weekend also showed that Kerry, while still raging hot favourites to retain their crown, are beatable. In fact, they came very close to exiting the championship on Saturday night and Tyrone have justifiable gripes around some key decisions that could have altered the outcome.

You’ll read about Mayo’s victory over Cork elsewhere in these pages and, while the neutral viewpoint will inevitably identify the Rebels prolifigacy in front of the posts as the defining factor, Mayo deserve enormous credit.

It was clear Mayo were on it from the start defensively.

Donnacha McHugh’s superb job on Steven Sherlock was the central piece of it all, but more often than not, the pressure on each and every ball carrier coming into the scoring zone was high. Mayo, having played three weekends on the bounce, showed great tenacity and energy and that helped set the platform for their star attackers to shine on the big stage. Given his display in tracking Cork's ace marksman, McHugh looks like the man to curb Sam Mulroy's influence the next day, even if Mulroy will drift further back the field.

Local readers will marvel at the fact that what was often deemed as Mayo’s achilles heel over the years has now become their main threat. The full-forward line of Beirne, O’Donoghue and McDonald is capable of causing serious damage and they bring a style to their play that, perhaps, has been absent in Mayo's attacking department over the years.

Similarly, the versatility of McDonald and O’Donoghue in dropping back the pitch and attacking from deep gives Mayo the option to keep defences guessing, while Tommy Conroy's impact from the bench was especially useful.

It was a joy to watch McDonald prosper in the flesh. His leap for a kickout in the second-half was fantastic, but the audacity to pull off the hand pass over the head of Steven Sherlock in the first-half, before chasing after it and helping set up a score, was special.

McDonald’s ability to make the stadium brim with expectation every time he handles possession is a quality only a few players possess. David Clifford, Con O’Callaghan and Michael Murphy all fall into that category. That McDonald is already there, at his tender age, underlines just how big a talent he is.

The semi-final draw has only intensified the excitement now as we head for the final four.

Louth have been one of the stories of the summer, and their redemption arc from their meek defeat to Dublin in Portlaoise in their Leinster semi-final reflects a group that has bundles of character. They needed to draw on all those reserves last Sunday to overcome Monaghan after the early red card for Seán Callaghan.

The fascinating question now is can that wave of momentum carry them past a Mayo team that still has more experience than them of big occasions?

The hype train will be in overdrive in Louth in the next fortnight, even more so than Mayo. They are seriously passionate about their football and the reaction to the draw of cheers in Croke Park from some of their supporters, even if innocuous enough in the overall scheme of things, underlines the thought process in the Wee County. They know this is a once in a generation opportunity and that brings with it a big sense of pressure. Mayo are in a good spot.

On the other side, Kerry emerged – but only just – from their joust with Tyrone.

Malachy O'Rourke cut a frustrated figure in the aftermath and his team will point to a couple of key decisions in the second-half that may have swung things a different way. Paudie Clifford's converted ’45 was one such moment, at a key stage. Replays suggest it should have been a wide ball, with Diarmuid O’Connor getting what looked like the final touch.

Kerry, though, will take an enormous amount from coming through a tight encounter. Jack O'Connor is by a distance the most experienced manager still standing and will know at this stage that it's all about winning.

Their retention stats at kickout time continue to be incredibly strong. Figuring out how, on so many occasions, a Kerry player gathered possession in acres of space will haunt Tyrone, especially in that opening half. Dublin need to apply more pressure on Shane Murphy's restarts if they are to have a joy in their semi-final in two weeks’ time.

And so, we're left with a pair of semi-finals dripping with intrigue. On one side, Gaelic Football’s most storied rivalry is set for another chapter and on the other the opportunity of a lifetime for two groups of players beckons.

Football has never been in a better place.