It's close to six months since the 2023 All-Ireland SFC championship concluded and now serious inter-county fare looms into view again.
My own club season wasn't as memorable as its immediate predecessor - we surrendered our Mayo SFC title to old foes Breaffy in the quarter-final, abruptly ending our back-to-back hopes or any notion of mounting a better crack at a Connacht campaign.
Speaking of the provincial dimension, I noted John Fogarty's article in the Irish Examiner this week on how the Allianz Leagues now generate more gate money than the provinces and are gradually overtaking them in importance.
Then, Jim McGuinness pushed back on that particular narrative on Donegal radio, though we all know Ulster is an exception. The other three provincial tournaments were fairly tame affairs, in particular the three provincial deciders, which were all turkey shoots.
"Cillian couldn't watch the last few minutes and picked up a Bible he found in the pub and read it in the toilet."
The hype around the league has certainly grown, as seen in attendances, though from a Mayo panel perspective, we always took the league seriously in my time.
I appeared in fits and starts in the league in 2011, though my first year as a regular starter was 2012, when we lost the final to Cork.
It was early in James Horan's first reign and our sports psychologist at the time harped on about the fact that the teams reaching All-Ireland semi-finals and finals were nearly always in Division 1.
The guiding philosophy was that Division 1 football was critically important to our development as a group. There wasn't quite the laser focus on winning every game in the league as there might be in championship. You would tend to pick your battles depending on the context. But the emphasis was always on preserving top-tier status.
Our only experience of relegation was during Covid in the interrupted 2020 campaign. We were lucky, however - the league was shortened for 2021 and we came straight back up.
In 2018, we survived in the last second when Kevin McLoughlin nailed a brilliant score to get us a draw up in Ballybofey. Myself and Cillian O'Connor were injured that day and watched the game in a pub in Westport on the beer. Cillian couldn't watch the last few minutes and picked up a Bible he found in the pub and read it in the toilet. I don't think he's especially a man of faith but maybe he was hoping it would help with some divine intervention. It did that day, anyway.
Division 1 - Derry can challenge big two
Mayo enter this campaign as defending champions, as we know. A league medal was welcome - there aren't enough national medals around the county - but the overall lesson from last year was they went full throttle too early on in 2023. It's possibly understandable given that it was Kevin McStay's first year in charge but you'd imagine they might pace things differently this time around.
Kevin was insisting they're not far away from the summit, though it remains to be seen. It's a big year to prove it. Based on last year's All-Ireland series, Dublin and Kerry looked to be a good step ahead of the chasing pack. Their management of the new championship format was also much smarter than the rest.
I think Jack O'Connor has been wise in resting the Clifford brothers for the first two weekends. With their squad depth, I'd expect them to cope well. And God help whoever they have coming up in week three [it's Mayo...]
With the Dubs, it will depend on their attitude. Their strength in depth offered them plenty of scope for trialling things - though Davy Byrne is a loss in defence. Given their age profile, you'd imagine Dessie Farrell will be keen to place the younger crop front and centre in the spring.
It's an annual prediction obviously, but I would anticipate Monaghan will struggle this year. They were the cat with nine lives last year. It was a great story and they showed terrific resilience, though they actually only won six of 15 competitive games last year - excluding the quarter-final shootout.
You'd worry for Tyrone even more. The vibes aren't especially good. They took a pasting in last year's quarter-final and Niall Sludden, Ronan McNamee have stepped away, now Richie Donnelly is opting out for the year. There are questions about Mattie Donnelly's fitness.
It seems to be the trend since they won that 2021 All-Ireland final. We saw a plethora of players leave the panel in the immediate aftermath and it's continued in that vein. I don't know if there are issues with management or whether it's players themselves satisfied that they've got their medal and that's that.
Of the two teams most likely to gatecrash the Dublin-Kerry axis, I'd be looking at the other two reigning provincial champions.
Galway's year unravelled very quickly last summer but if you take into account the injuries to Sean Kelly and Damien Comer as well as Shane Walsh's overall form [and still Mayo only just stumbled over them in Salthill], they're still very close. They have Liam Silke back - one of the best defenders in the game - and Kieran Molloy, plus young Fiontán Ó Curraoin looked the part in the FBD final against Roscommon, even though they lost by 10.
And while I'd make Kerry favourites for the league, I do have a slight hunch about Derry. They've made a habit of hitting full tilt in the league and have a good tradition in the competition going back the decades. A lot will depend on the Glen lads, whether Mickey Harte will rush them back in or if he'll give them a couple of rounds off to recharge.
Division 2 - Armagh will be hungry for silver
While Division 1 is stacked with elite teams, it's Division 2 that's more consequential for the sides in it, given its implications for the summer.
Of all the divisions, it's especially hard to predict. Given the low ebb they arrived at last year, Donegal will be targetting the league under McGuinness. During his first term, they used it as a springboard and achieved immediate promotion in 2011.
They took the McKenna Cup relatively seriously to generate confidence, even if the final got away from them. We saw the outline of a more ambitious attacking game already though it's very early days yet. Given the condition they'd fallen into last year, I don't see them challenging at the top end this summer. But Jim will seek to make them ultra-competitive.
Cork proved a lot of doubters wrong in 2023 and will be looking to build on their first positive year for some time. There's the bones of a serious forward line there, Chris Óg Jones, Steven Sherlock, Brian Hurley. I'd fancy them to have a big league and it's a real fillip for the game in Munster - and the game overall - to see Cork football rolling again.
I gave Kildare a hard time on occasion last year, though that's as much due to the talent they do possess. The rousing win over Roscommon at a key juncture masked what had been a fairly miserable campaign up until then. They were unlucky against Monaghan the following week, though will have regrets given that they had got up some momentum. Frustrating inconsistency has been the only constant in recent seasons and they need to correct that.
I would be tipping Armagh to go up, definitely. It would be especially welcome if they won it, as McGeeney would finally get some silverware. He might not get much leeway from his critics for winning Division 2 but it's a starting point. Beyond the league, there are still question marks about their big game mentality and ability to dig it out in big game scenarios.
They looked to have answered that against Galway but then frittered away a golden opportunity against Monaghan. Throw in their surrendering of a late lead in the Ulster final and the pattern is there.
Though we've confined ourselves to the top two divisions ahead of week one, I'll give a nod to the third tier, where my old mate Kevin McLoughlin embarks on his first league campaign in the coaching game as part of Tony McEntee's backroom team in Sligo.
Sligo made some progress last year, finally escaping Division 4 and earning a draw with Kildare in the round robin phase. Tony was a former coach of mine in Mayo and after a long grim spell, they could be on the up.
Watch Kerry v Derry in the Allianz Football League on Saturday from 5pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to updates on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch highlights on Allianz League Sunday on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player from 9.30pm, follow a live blog every Sunday afternoon on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live updates on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
