99 matches, to win just one...

When you live by the GAA, the calendar year mean very little - as the club champions of 2022 are crowned, a crazily condensed 2023 football season is well underway!

Hello there, alongside weekly episodes of The Football Pod with Paddy Andrews and James O’Donoghue, I’m starting a GAA newsletter for the intercounty season.

Why? I’ll have to come back to that at the end of the post!

Hopefully, I’ll give you a reason to subscribe to the newsletter over the weeks ahead, with some analysis, stories and thoughts from the 2023 season, as well as some updates from the podcast.

Warning: you are not ready for the GAA year

Don’t say you weren’t given a heads up, the 2023 intercounty season of Gaelic Football is going to be intense. Here’s a few numbers for you.

• 29 - the amount of senior intercounty matches to be played in the thirty days of April, including the four league finals.

• 99 - the amount of Championship matches to be played (minus replays) to crown the 2023 Tailteann Cup and All-Ireland winners.

• 113 - the number of days we’ll have, between the Championship opener on April 8th and the All-Ireland senior football final on July 30th, to play all those games.

To put those numbers into context, there were 71 SFC games in the 2019 season - that included replays and the Super 8s, it was played off in 132 days. Last summer, between the Tailteann Cup and All-Ireland series, we had 60 matches in 99 days.

It’s going to be manic, but it’s very, very exciting - especially for someone whose world happens to revolve around the game.

Make no mistake about it, that which is eternally broken (the Championship) hasn’t been fixed. The hope is though, that the plaster which has been placed on the season ahead, might just show us how good life could be, if we get it right.

Typically our best competition - this year’s league is the most important in years, because where you finish is going to have a direct impact on your Championship hopes - and with a round-robin series set for both the All-Ireland and Tailteann Cup series, many counties will see it as a huge chance to make progress.

The Football Pod, with myself, James O’Donoghue and Paddy Andrews returns this Monday night, and as we get stuck into our third season of the podcast, it feels like this year could turn into one of the very best for Gaelic Football.

Another number for you - we had a million listens to The Football Pod last year.

1,000,000! - we’re very thankful to everybody who has tuned in and got involved, whether you dipped your toe in for a few minutes or you’ve made the podcast a part of your week, thank you, and here’s to a bigger and better 2023.

A Year (and a bit) of Sunday’s.

Fifty four Sunday’s and four nights have passed since January 5th, 2022. Jack O’Connor flexed his muscles and named a Kerry side that were ready to maim Limerick: his first fifteen included eight of the team that fell short against Tyrone the previous August in the All-Ireland semi-final.

David and Paudie Clifford started that night, and kicked 2-06 between them.

Jack was back, and he wasn’t taking prisoners. Kerry won by 23 points and it sent a message around the country: they were here to win it all, and that they did - the McGrath Cup, Division 1 and Sam Maguire spent the winter in the Kingdom.

Fast-forward to January 15th 2023, and David and Paudie Clifford have just reached the promised land with Fossa. Junior Club All-Ireland Champions, that box is ticked, forever. It’d be remiss not to mention the Rathmore duo of Shane Ryan and Paul Murphy who have also cleaned up this year, winning the intermediate title later that afternoon.

Could this be problematic for Jack, though? We’ll get to that.

Don’t underestimate how important this run with Fossa was to the pair of brothers who have won it all this past year - just ask Tommy Walsh, the legendary Kilkenny hurler who retired in 2014 with 9 All-Ireland medals, and that still wasn’t enough. Up on stage with Ollie Canning, Ken McGrath and Daithi Regan at an Off The Ball roadshow in September 2017, you could tell that it ‘ate away’ at him that he’d never won with the club. Thankfully his soul could rest after the 2019/20 season, when Tullaroan went all the way, with Tommy in tow. Watch, to see what it means.

24th July 2022: Jack O’Connor on the shoulders of his Kerry team with Sam in his hands, can they win back-to-back All-Ireland’s? Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Title Contenders? We’ve got a few!

Dublin’s decade of dominance at the top table was broken in 2021 as Tyrone won Sam, and last summer Sean O’Shea’s right boot shattered it as Kerry went on to end their own self-titled ‘famine’. The Dubs (8), Kerry (7) and Tyrone (4) - have won 19 of the 23 All-Ireland finals this millenium - but could 2023 open the door to someone new?

Galway had a summer that would do the heart good. Derry know what they need, to go that bit further. Armagh are looking on with envy and a tint of regret of what could have been. Tyrone have a point to prove this year and it smells like something fresh is brewing in Dublin. I won’t mention Mayo, yet - but I do have doubts about whether Kerry are good enough to win back-to-back All-Irelands.

We mentioned above how Jack O’Connor pumped the chest out from day one last year, Kerry were relentless in their pursuit - but they were also blessed. Dublin (without Con) could have caught them, and they were extremely lucky to have Clifford for as much of last year as they did. Despite hitting his extraordinary heights and winning Footballer of the Year, it’s scary to think that he wasn’t fully fit for a good chunk of it. Hamstring bother in the spring, a calf problem that kept him out of the Munster final and then an ankle issue made him a serious doubt for that epic Dublin game. Could he have been minded a bit better?

The Sigerson Cup was the only accolade that eluded David Clifford in 2022. UL losing the final to NUIG on a rotten night in Carlow on February 16th - that Wednesday night was the 9th match of the season for Clifford for club and county, he’d score 1-01 in Killarney the following Sunday too as Kerry swatted Donegal aside. Colm Keys of the Irish Independent, noted tonight that Fossa’s win was his 34th match of the year - for club, county, college and district - he scored a combined total of 20-187.

They all leaned heavily on his genius, and he delivered for every one of them.

Surely - everyone can see that a nice long break, would do him the world of good. Wrap him up until the ground gets a bit firmer and the weather improves. Let him catch up on that missed holiday, or two - it never did the Dubs any harm to come back a little bit later that most, on their historic run to win six in-a-row.

How long does it take for a manager to leave a mark?

I think we’re all finding it difficult to read too much into this year’s pre-season tournaments - but with fourteen new county managers on the scene this year, every minute counts.

Nine of that fourteen are first time inter-county managers, which makes it all the more interesting - with a right blend of youth and big reputations, you’d hope they’ll each get a chance to bring some new ideas to the fore. I have a feeling that Colm O’Rourke (first Meath mention of the year), Conor Laverty in Down and Paddy Christie in Longford could get their counties into a good place really quickly. Paddy Carr in Donegal, and Kevin McStay in Mayo will both feel the pressure early - as there’ll be very little room to breathe in Division 1.

We’ll be discussing the new managers, players to watch and the teams we’re excited about on the first two episodes of The Football Pod as we build-up to the 2023 NFL.

Why am I writing a GAA newsletter?

Mostly, it’s a test - a test to see if I still love writing (typing), after a decade (and counting) of working in radio. It’s a habit I’m hoping to form, within another year of covering a sport that I am utterly obsessed with, and I also hope it’ll become a useful tool to help put manners on the thoughts, ideas, and talking points from an insanely condensed season.

I can’t promise you it’ll be at the same time, every week - but I’m planning to write a few pieces every month, to add to our chats on The Football Pod and bring you a fresh perspective from behind the scenes of covering the 2023 Gaelic Football season. I’m just learning how to use Substack - but if you stick your email into the subscribe box, you should get an update whenever a new post goes up!

Thank you for reading, and feel free to give us a shout on twitter @tomasoruanaidh, email trooney1993@gmail.com, or at the @footballpod_gaa instagram or twitter pages.

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