Two weeks ago, Cavan scored a goal within 25 seconds of the throw-in against Roscommon when Martin Reilly jinked inside his marker and slotted the ball home from eight yards. Reilly’s marker? Roscommon full-forward Donie Shine.
When Dublin’s marksmen struggled to find their range against Westmeath in the Leinster final, up stepped corner-back Philly McMahon to remind them how it’s done.
And when Donegal and Tyrone clashed at the start of the summer, the referee was the busiest man on the pitch, dishing out black, yellow and red cards to numerous offenders on both sides.
The game of Gaelic football has changed, changed utterly since Mick O’Connell’s time.
Contributors to a 1975 RTÉ documentary on the Kerry legend say the player was a “purist”, “a classical exponent of the pin-pointed kick,” and that “for style, nothing could ever equal O’Connell ”.
High praise. Incontrovertible truth.
O’Connell has four All-Ireland medals, won between 1959 and 1970, but plays down their significance.
“I just played because I liked playing,” he says. “I don’t rate my football time [by] medals at all.”
In an interview with Darren Frehill on Sunday Sport, the 78-year-old recalled how he first started playing with a ball, a universally identifiable story.
“Kicking,” he calls it. “We just went kicking with each other, as youngsters in the local fields, a few of us after school, kicking together.
"I think that is something that stood to us, that we were just practising the skills."
“I grew up in a fishing, sea-going family [that] was not involved in sport but there was a team here in Valentia Island always and we used to follow it locally and sometimes [go] up the river to Cahirciveen watching local teams playing.”
That “kicking” eventually led to a Kerry senior call-up and numerous NFL, Munster and All-Ireland wins.
"I saw Kerry playing last year in one game: there was 13 handpasses to one kick."
O'Connell is considered one of the greatest footballers of all time. He knows what he’s talking about. It comes from the heart and the head. He now refuses to call the game he once excelled at ‘football’.
“When I’m watching the game now I don’t mention football,” the islander says.
“I call it ‘Gaelic’ because of the preponderance of handpassing. To me it is a delusion but others think it’s great.
“When I was playing it I just played it as it was supposed to be played that time. I think it has been diluted down by the introduction of the handpass.
“I saw Kerry playing last year in one game: there were 13 handpasses to one kick.
“Look, the players are doing what the game allows and some people would think that I am an old player criticising players – they put a lot of practice in, in fact they put a lot more practice in than in my day. They probably have more facilities available to them.
“But generally, I think the game as it is being presented to them is something that doesn’t please me anyway, and that’s just a very personal opinion.
“They talk a lot about speeding up. There was a friend of ours here, he was a great sprinter, I don’t think he was a good footballer.
“Sonia O’Sullivan, she could run as good as anyone around the field, but would she be a footballer?
“I think the skills should come first, being able to field, kick well with both legs, [out] of the hands and off the ground.
“But there is another thing that has gone as well: kicking off the ground.
“The game now is different. I’m not saying that it’s better or worse, it’s what people want but it’s not my preference anyway.”
One of modern-day football’s notable characteristics is negativity: stop your opponents, swamp the defence, foul cynically, deny space, limit the damage.
Westmeath’s 13-point loss to Dublin was seen as some sort of victory as it was still a contest until the 40th minute.
Who enjoys the game as it is played now? How much fun is it for an inter-county player to train through the winter months with the aim of keeping the score respectable when they meet one of the top sides?
Do Dublin players get a buzz out of putting 20 or 30 points on a provincial rival? Do children in Derry dream of winning a game by the odd point in nine?
Apart from arguably Dublin, Kerry or Mayo in full flow, it’s those sort of scenarios that are turning many off the sport. O’Connell is among them.
Asked if he can watch and enjoy a match in these times, he has an answer that must resonate with many who grew up watching the games he played in.
“That’s a question, which to answer honestly, I don’t,” he says with regret.
“I have Sky television now. I follow all sports: soccer, rugby and hurling, the team sports, in particular.
“But I think of all the team sports that I know, it’s the least attractive to me.”
He blames neither players nor officials for the current state of the game but has a strong view on how we’ve reached this stage.
“There’s no concept of what was Gaelic football," he says.
"Any person with a good vision of the game would know what is practicable and what is not practicable"
“I’m following it now since the 1940s. They introduced a handpass. They put something in hoping that it might work.
"Sure any person with a good vision of the game would know what is practicable and what is not practicable.
“I think it’s an almost impossible game to referee. There’s a word introduced in the game now that was not in it all in my time. The word ‘tackle’.
“It’s often asked of me, ‘what do you think of the tackle?’ Are you talking about tackling the ball or the man? I says tackling the ball is what Gaelic football should be, not tackling the man.
“If you want to play tackling the man, play rugby and you can decently pull him down.
“Take the rules of Gaelic football now, I mentioned about the tackle, tackle the ball, it should be.
“I read in the papers ‘there was a black card’. I think they’ve gone tail-end ways to the game. The idea of the game should be a good game where there’s no fouls, that’s the ideal. To have a clear set of rules, which Gaelic does not have.
“And also the red and the yellow and now the black card, which is making it more difficult for the referee again.
“I think to referee a game, this might be a harsh statement here: a referee in Gaelic football is a martyr to the cause, I think.
"Because the players themselves have no clear set of rules and the referee is being loaded now with a pocketful of cards to show them and to take time and so on.
“That’s my answer about the black card anyway but it will be there and if there was another colour card come in from other codes I think they would introduce it as well.
"‘Tis the tail-end way of doing it instead of going for the ideal of having a minimum amount of fouls and less pressure on the referee to try and administer it.”
Wise words from one of the greats.
