THE National League finals concluded at the weekend with a double-header Saturday and Sunday past at Croke Park. It was the first time this festival of football has had crowds since 2019, which was absolutely fantastic to see.

I watched Saturday’s games on TV but travelled down Sunday for the Division One and Two finals, with the Division Two final eclipsing all the games at the weekend with a brilliant encounter between Connacht neighbours Roscommon and Galway.

The performance of David Clifford in the second game on Sunday was worth the entry fee alone as he produced one of the finest displays of forward play that had a little bit of everything. Any young player watching this man could learn so, so much.

A lot has been made of the different types of set-ups in teams this year. The old sweeper or defensive system, as it was previously labelled, has now become the tracking back in numbers and working hard system, whatever you want to call it, the game-plans of the four teams on Sunday were distinctly different.

In the first game, Roscommon, played a plus one at the back with Niall Daly, who excels in this role, dropping off to protect the space in front of Damein Comer, who was being tagged by Brian Stack, who is one of the most under-rated defenders in the top two divisions.

The front eight of Roscommon has been bolstered by the return from injury of Ultan Harney, the heartbeat of this side.

Ultan is a proper warrior and was outstanding in the middle of the field on Sunday.

The return to form of Conor Cox and the emergence of Cathal Heneghan, who enjoyed a brilliant Sigerson campaign, has given Anthony Cunningham’s forward line a lot more potency and they were, in my opinion, worthy winners in a game they could have won a lot earlier than Diarmuid Murtagh’s late wonder goal.

Galway, who were minus Shane Walsh, set up like they normally do in most games with a very rigid zonal defensive template, Sean Kelly lining out in midfield dropping into a plus two set up on either side of the D alongside Heaney at wing forward.

Galway are being helped by a return to form of Comer but if you manage to shut down Conroy, who was excellent on the day, and keep a lead on Walsh in the championship they will struggle to win Connacht.

The goalkeeping situation also remains a problem for Joyce, with Roscommon winning nearly a third of Galway kick-outs and it was a real launchpad into the game for them.

In the Division One final, the pattern of play for Mayo simply doesn’t change – it’s high intensity, high octane man-to-man everywhere from the middle third up looking to put manic pressure on the ball-carrier.

Mayo like to turn games into scrambles, battles, making it extremely attritional and hoping to cause carnage in that middle third war zone, and they always seem to carry the mantra that ‘pressure creates panic.’

This will work against most sides, but doing it against Kerry seems a little foolish.

Kerry had the top percentage of shot takers this weekend with 34 attempts on goal, only managing 64 per cent efficiency, so the scoreline could have been a lot more had
Kerry added the same level of efficiency as Roscommon who had an 80 per cent efficiency in their shot to score ratio.

Kerry have such flexibility to their game, it really is frightening. With the running power from deep, coupled with the ability to kick early and direct to an unmarkable Clifford, it’s starting to look like a new period of dominance could be starting to emerge.

For all the talk of Kerry’s problems in goal, against a team who like to press and press kick-outs hard, their 90 per cent retention rate on their own kick-outs was mightily impressive and was helped by a serious performance from Jack Barry and Diarmuid O’Connor.

Moving forward, Mayo will be extremely disappointed in their 46 per cent conversion rate, the lowest of the whole weekend, only Cavan were close on 48 per cent.

They will need Cillian O’Connor’s return to help bolster their forward threat which currently relies heavily on Ryan O’Donoghue who has had a solid league.