Emmet Moloney writes for the 'Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

For the second time in three years Tyrone and Dublin brought about 80,000 to Croke Park on a winter’s night. Both events were spectacular successes. Emmet Moloney was there...

Last Saturday evening was a very proud moment for GAA people everywhere. The end-of-match show reminded me of an Olympic Closing Ceremony or the New Year celebrations over Sydney’s Opera House. It was wonderful to see our organisation do it so well. And not a sight of Pat Kenny anywhere!

The game itself lived up to expectations as well. The whole experience left me with a warm buzz and my thoughts, as is their wont, turned to the bigger picture. Why can’t we have this throughout the winter months? Football can be played in all climates and floodlit football, in front of huge crowds, is almost as compulsive as football can get (I say this as an unapologetic hurling man).

We need more of Dublin and Tyrone. We need Cork and Kerry tearing strips off each other under lights in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. A league double header in Croker with Armagh, Meath, Dublin and Kildare. Look at what the marketing promotion did for last weekend’s extravaganza. Just short of a full house on a chilly winter’s evening. And with a crowd like that in attendance it means more than just two league points. It has the air of championship about it. In other words, this is just what the doctor ordered for an anaemic National Football League.

And for a fiver extra on the ticket we should have fireworks every night.
Tyrone will now retreat to playing matches in Omagh in front of six or seven thousand, while Dublin will haunt Parnell Park on wet and miserable Sunday afternoons, doing the same. Meanwhile, the blueprint for energising football now lies on a Sky Plus recorder or in Setanta’s archive vaults.

The National Football League is a strange entity these days. Unlike almost every other sporting competition, it tends to lose its relevance and importance as the weeks wear on. As we get nearer to the knockout stages and games that should, in theory, mean something, our thoughts are turning elsewhere. Winning a National League isn’t worth the hassle if you are idle come July or August. If anything, a manager will be blamed for putting too much emphasis on the damn thing if he wins the League but flops in the Championship!

We are now accustomed to the League being described as a nursery “to find a few new players”. Kilkenny will give a run to one or two 20-year-old hurlers who will vie for young hurler of the year come September. Kerry will unveil a Moran, Walsh or Sheedy or some other such genetic machine for playing football and winning All-Irelands.
Once upon a time, the real stars of the summer wouldn’t come out in the winter, having earned the right to miss the early rounds of the league. That day is fading fast.
I’m old enough to remember Clare winning two hurling leagues in ’77 and ’78. There were 10,000 in Ennis to welcome them home and there was an actual homecoming. I think we got a day off school. It’s all quite forgotten now. Down in Cork, their participation in the national leagues has been a doubt for the past two years. That’s how important the competition is to them.

I have yet to be convinced that hurling works under lights. But we know football does. Of course we all want big games and lots of them. Why should we wait from September to the following July or August for a knockout game that really means something to the winners? Tying the League together with the Championship in some way is the route. Making the League valuable financially is another option. If a game means something, people will come. Last Saturday night proved that beyond a doubt.

By the way, Setanta paid for the privilege of covering the National Football League in a process that included RTÉ. To the winner go the spoils. We should be thankful for Setanta (and in particular TG4) for they are making RTÉ pull up their socks.
No harm either. Our national broadcaster continues to treat our games with a carelessness bordering on incompetence. The news of the resumption of the League with all the results of the day was the fourth item on the 9 o’clock news’s sports coverage. A foreign game took precedence. It’s a small thing but it’s a symptom of a bigger issue. The arrival of competitors in the broadcasting sphere can only help.

To catch Emmet's latest column, get 'The Farmers' Journal' every Thursday...