The 2023 All Ireland Senior Football Championship (Sam Maguire Cup)

I think myself that there are not enough good teams to make up a 16 team "A" championship, and no amount of prelim quarter finals are going to change that.

Watch out for the long range points…….

I think the hurlers are miles off Limerick & Clare tbh.

Footballers yeah great chance, probably dependent on Walsh hitting top form at the right time.

i think you are correct unfortunately, top of my head there would be about 10/12 teams form top tier to the potential to be 'ok' on their day. In Hurling that pool is even smaller but they manage to really ramp the hype up. I think those who follow football or football/hurling never feel the need to 'hype' football up like the way hurling only people do with hurling.

I always associate the 'great advertisement for...' line with those from hurling. A lot of times football people do the opposite talk down the game, say the game is a disgrace etc. It is an odd way of doing things. Really hammer the sport. I remember hearing the Kerry Great Mick O'Connell on radio, A point blank refusal to call it Gaelic Football anymore. it is not Gaeilc Football said he - so he just calls it 'Gaelic'

10/12 teams that are competitive or could be competitive is a good core. Football people should at least be happy about that? A much wider depth than hurling therefore more likely to survive in decades to come.

In my lifetime following Gaelic Football I have seen changes in mindset, and the sport becoming more tactical and nuanced with different styles of play. Most of this happened in the last decade. With Gaelic Football borrowing from other codes. It amuses me to think I was one of those those Dubs who was apoplectic with rage at Donegal's tactics v Dublin in the 2011 AISF. But now I am used to it and have a great appreciation of what was been done and why.

There will come a day where the broadcasters show lineups not as the traditional 1-15 but show different football formations reflecting the reality of the game.

That football 10/12 core will only go from strength to strength. But the beauty of the simplicity of Gaelic Football as opposed to Hurling is that those lower down the pecking order at least have a 'chance' to compete if they get the tactics correct. If those outside the 10-12 counties have a manager who is willing to innovate it can easily make a team greater than the sum of it's parts.

Galway people amuse me when it is like this where there are spells where Football is suddenly top dog over the hurling. They are never sure how to react. It is not the norm.

Never sure whether to praise their own footballers, and they never seem to realise when a Galway football side is a really good football side. It takes those from outside the county to tell them, The Galway football fans anyway don't seem to have that 'swagger' 'confidence' that other fans of traditional have when their counties venture outside their province. There is no expectation from them.

But the funny part is the Galway hurlers have to be the biggest hardluck stories/underachievers in hurling. I have yet to make my mind up whether the Mayo Footballers or the Galway's hurlers are the biggest underachievers. Because Mayo are consistent, Galway hurling rarely is consistent.

Which is why this spell of solid consistent football from the Galway footballers is all the more funny. It annoys the bejayus out of Mayo (imagine Galway won Sam before Mayo again), and the Galway hurling people do be looking on half wondering what the craic is.

Has to be something to do with curry chips and bucky. It normally is isn't it? I think the secret is getting the portions right, in some sort of exact formula?

The Galway footballers must have it spot on, and the Galway hurlers have the combination wrong?

I suppose you do worse than put a fiver on the Galway double, you wouldn't know what the Galway hurlers could do no their day.

RTE selected games for round 3 are Sunday the 18th 1:45 Roscommon v Kildare and 4pm Armagh v Galway. 4 other games will be live on GAAGO. Louth v Kerry and Derry v Clare not covered.

I think you're ignoring the baron spells in both codes. We didn't technically win a knockout game in Croker in the football in normal time for 22 years until Derry last year, even managing to get knockout out by Antrim in the qualifiers one year. We went 29 years without an All-Ireland in the hurling and are 5 years since our last All-Ireland final. There's plenty of pain associated with being a dual supporter out here.

You'd want your head examined to be getting too cocky as a Galway football fan at this stage. We still have a goalie liable to do anything, a fullback that isn't a natural fullback, Walsh badly out of form, the backbone of the team Conroy is getting on in years and doesn't have the legs for Croker anymore and a couple of key players that we're still waiting on to step up to the next level like Finnerty and Tierney.

Any couple of the above issues can cost you games in the business end of the championship.

I hope I don't come across as playing the pity card for ourselves. We've had great days in the last few years that most counties might never get. But we're still well within our rights to be cautious about talking up our chances of winning an All-Ireland in either code.

So 15 teams enter the weekend with something to play for. Noone wants to be putting themselves under pressure but privately a lot of counties will be targeting the group win for the direct route to the quarter-finals. 3 teams will join Clare in being eliminated. The 4 eliminated counties will not be saying 3 out of 4 is easy!

Interestingly in the Tailteann Cup last weekend, 2 of the 3 third placed teams got through.

The bigger flaw is the seeding. Louth, Clare and Sligo were Seed 2. Mayo, Roscommon, Tyrone and Monaghan were Seed 3. Provincial runners-up should not be seeded above higher ranked league teams.

Round 3 was fixed as follows:

Seed 1 v Seed 2. Seed 3 v Seed 4.

Kerry v Mayo, Galway v Tyrone, Dublin v Roscommon and Derry v Monaghan should be Round 3 games. If they were, on provincial winners and league ranking these counties would be in a shootout for the quarter-finals.

Louth v Cork, Armagh v Westmeath, Kildare v Sligo and Donegal v Clare should also be Round 3. If they were, these counties on league ranking would be in a shootout to avoid elimination.

The solution to the GAA's problem of 3 from 4 could be 6 from 8 instead! In 2 groups of 8, teams can play one team from 4 seeded brackets. After 4 rounds, 2 home and 2 away, the top 2 can advance to the quarter-finals. The middle 4 can compete in the playoff round. There can be less complaints about 6 advancing from 8 because teams would only be playing 4 rounds.

Results to cause surprise are: Cork beating Mayo. Armagh beating Galway or Westmeath. Westmeath beating Tyrone. Kildare beating Roscommon. Donegal beating Monaghan.

I'm not saying any of these will happen. Just they would cause surprise. Mayo would lose out on the group win. Armagh would win the group and Westmeath as a double shock would eliminate Tyrone. Kildare would take second place and open up a route to the quarter-finals. Donegal would also open up a route to the quarter-finals.

Hard to see Armagh beating Galway without O'Neill. He really is the main outlet for them.

I think Mayo will be up for this one too. They only have to keep a very minimal amount of Cork players quiet, and they should have enough attacking power to build up a decent score. I don't think Cork will play quite as defensive as Louth did.

Roscommon/Dublin group could be interesting. If both win, I think they would be on same points. And then the head to head was a draw. So I think it is score difference then. And both are on almost the same at the moment. You would think Dublin have the easier one against Sligo, but as we have seen, you never know with this Dublin outfit.

Half time and not going according to plan thus far with Clare and Derry level in Longford and Donegal leading by 4 points v Monaghan.