I'm a married man and father of five. Being wrong more often than I’m right comes with the territory.
My role within football, be it as manager or part-time pundit, offers the rare sensation of my opinion actually being sought. The accuracy of it as ever though remains very much open to debate.
The new rules aren’t helping in that regard. The game we grew up playing and studying feels at the same time as familiar as it does alien.
Yesterday, Antrim, in an ultimate throw the kitchen sink at it performance, scored 1-23 against the reigning All-Ireland Champions. They hit two-pointers with as much relish as they hit men in orange shirts.
To score that and still lose by 11 points is not what we’ve grown up with. For Armagh, to be playing a bit off colour and still post a staggering 1-34 makes analysis from our conventional understanding of the game null and void.
One aspect I didn’t foresee - in fact I thought the opposite - is the scope for tactical variation in terms of how teams take on the game. I suspected that the rules harking after the return of the traditional game would lead to an iteration that, while possibly more exciting, would be much less tactically nuanced. A pay-off that may have been worth it but a step back in some ways none the less.
To date though, I have been struck by the possibilities and the different approaches taken by different teams.
Maybe we are in the era where, without a dominant tactical blueprint that the controlled, possession-based game had become over the last 10 years, there is no de facto 'best way’ to play the game.
In that vacuum, coaches are back doing what they do best. Looking at the players they have at their disposal, their team’s strengths, their own coaching strengths or preferences and coming up with the best game plan to suit them. Donegal, with a traditional preference for the short passing running game have produced probably the most impressive football to date in the championship.
At the opposite end Kerry, the teams traditional kick specialists are using that. They are the two form teams in the country. We’ve got teams that love the two-pointers, teams hunting goals, teams chipping away at the ones.
Defensively we’ve got retreating teams, high pressing teams, arc finding teams and teams pushing the one v ones. Take a look at the top teams - Donegal, Armagh, Kerry, Dublin, Galway, Mayo - they are all playing the game to their own interpretation. It’s a brilliant time.
Maybe when the All-Ireland is done, we will see the era of copycats kick in again but hopefully not. The sheer variety on display at present is so refreshing compared to what we have become accustomed too.
The goalkeeping role probably took up more discussion time than anything else over the course of the league. Much was made of the diminished role with decreased kickout options and the change from 3v3 to 4v3 which restricted their attacking exploits.
Yet the era of the goalkeeper looks far from over. Shaun Patton blew a hole in the notion of kickout options being limited. The options are different, some are gone but with the right players and coaching, there is a huge amount there to be achieved.
Donegal demonstrated short, long and Patton-long options and through a combination of aerial dominance, break ball foragers or deft flick-ons to their strike runners it was as far from a one-dimensional kickout game as you could get.
The biggest thing that was missing was complete control. Every option had with it a small element of risk. Derry were off colour yet still punished that Donegal kickout for six points and won 50% of the long ones.
And that loss of control from a management teams’ arsenal is the biggest thing. The only way you control a game now is by going and winning the ball and doing something with it. The breadth of options open for consideration is brilliant. The focus of attention has shifted from how best ‘manage the game’ to how best to utilise your players and go win it.
'It was amazing to hear the narrative in the soccer world during the week with Gary Neville's lambasting of the keep ball, boring football that is dominating'
A further concern was the hammerings that might be handed out to lower-level teams shorn of the ability to ‘park the bus’. During the past 10-plus years it has oft been wondered what would happen if these teams actually had a real go.
Well, the three biggest mismatches so far, New York v Galway, Mayo v Sligo and Antrim v Armagh have all ended in expected results but not via expected games. Rather than just limiting their vaunted opponents the underdogs went out and took on the game and walked away with the credibility no amount of bus parking will earn you.
With all of this, it was amazing to hear the narrative in the soccer world during the week with Gary Neville’s lambasting of the keep ball, boring football that is dominating and how he felt like the game was losing itself and becoming boring.
They were opinions that were striking a chord and could well grow into a significant debate in that game.
Gaelic football has had that argument, and we are witnessing the workings out of the revolution. The fear that it would become a tactically more ignorant game for now can be dropped.
In every facet of the game there are options in how you want to take on the puzzle. In the absence of control, your only choice is to see what you’ve got in the changing room and go out and play. No wonder the players are enjoying it.
Watch Tyrone v Cavan in the Ulster Football Championship on Sunday from 3.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch The Sunday Game from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on all matches on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to updates from around the country on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
