The clenched fist. A powerful symbol of pride, fight, courage and victory. It has been used no doubt for millennia as an instinctive human reaction but I wonder if it's ever had a busier weekend than that just past.
From Celtic Park and the Athletic Grounds on Saturday evening to Healy Park and Hyde Park, Brewster to Breffini and all the way to Aughrim and Ardee on Sunday.
Throughout the country, throughout the divisions, it was there. Some were quiet, personal moments for players simply happy that they’d nailed a task. Many however, were raucous roars of passion and pride, or, as Mattie Donnelly brilliantly put it, "defiance".
Top of the heap was Darragh Canavan’s. He almost combusted with a strange double fist drive as he crowned his county's stunning display of 'Tyroneyness’ against Kerry, winning a crucial late free.
Without the context it could look daft. Yet not a person in Omagh or watching on TV were in any doubt of how fitting it was.
When RTÉ approached me regarding writing a column they wanted pieces slanted towards the tactical end of things. It is a part of the game that has developed beyond all recognition from even a decade ago.
The army of people involved with the inter-county teams is only beaten by the army of people involved in podcasts, newspapers and TV coverage, whose job it is to try to analyse things.
The worst thing to come out of all this is a penchant to over-analyse. We see patterns where there are none; read far too much into simple moves.
More often than not a good player may simply have identified in real time something that needed doing. We are fast reaching a stage where a young player would think that everything that happens on a pitch is pre-ordained and every skill or move was somehow taught by an expert coach or came from an American football style playbook.
You see the outworkings in dressing rooms and stands around the country. When something isn’t going right the first port of call is now to blame systems, tactics, coaching. "We aren’t set up right" has become a ubiquitous phrase that distances the players from the performance.
I blame Dublin to be honest.
That damned six-in-a-row team. Probably the most analysed team in GAA history. In an effort to explain the how and why it became all about their tactics. And in fairness the increasingly Teutonic way in which they played gave plenty of credence to the impression that their all-conquering dominance came from rolls of technical blueprints.
Yet taking a much more simple look at it, they had two key attributes. They were a set of supremely gifted footballers but they were also massively competitive. They were winners. They hated losing and as such their work-rate was always immense. That more than anything else was why they done what they done.
Of course, tactics are important. But the best tactics in the world without the raw competitive will to out work your opponent and desire to win are worthless.
Any team in the country could try and copy Rory Gallagher's Derry blueprint, and no doubt many will, but without their sheer energy, courage and downright ‘ballsiness’ it would be fruitless.
Do we really think there was a complete tactical, skill and fitness overhaul in Tyrone over the past seven days? Nope. A few tweaks maybe, but nothing can transform a team more than rediscovering their desire to expend endless energy for their team-mates, driven by a pride in the jersey they wear.
As much as modern tactics are important, by far the most powerful characteristic of a team remains the same as it ever was.
Clenched fist indeed.
Have we ever had it so good?
All through February and now into March I’ve been taken aback by the quality of football and the general interest in the games.
The crowds, the games, the levels of skill and conditioning, its off the charts. The routine pitch invasions by children inadvertently captures perfectly this new zeal.
In fairness, it isn’t out of the blue but rather a byproduct of the quality, competitive games the league has routinely produced over several years.
I can’t imagine we’ve ever had better average attendances, and this in an era of food and diesel prices that makes the average away game about as costly as a two-night break to the south of France.
And this also at a time of wall-to-wall TV coverage, thus blowing a hole in the arguments about televised games negatively impacting matchday attendances.
I have a creeping fear though. With the new convoluted championship format this year and, particularly, the insertion of a mini-league in peak summer, the exertions of the past several weeks could appear an irrelevance by then.
In time, is it possible that teams reduce the early season efforts to time themselves for championship?
Given what we have enjoyed over the past several weeks that would be a huge loss. I’m hoping the magic number seven will continue doing its job. With only seven games in a group and only two points for a win the tables remain so tight and permutations so open that every game ends up important.
The Allianz Football League has become a fantastic springtime pressure cooker. Yes the game has issues. Refereeing, diving and rules in general to name a few. But, in terms of the games themselves, for this time of year, have we ever had it so good?
