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

With just one championship hurling match on the calendar this weekend, Emmet Moloney will be reduced to watching football – or so he hopes...

You’d think that the new hurling qualifier system would mean you could go a whole summer avoiding a football match. But no. Our lone hurling encounter this Sunday drags us into Croke Park for a curtain raiser – a curtain raiser, if you don’t mind!

Dublin’s hurlers take on Antrim in the revamped Leinster championship. This is the first match. The main match as far as I am concerned. After that, Dublin and Meath are going to pull and drag out of each other for 75 minutes. Maybe a football match will break out, but you can never be sure when these two teams meet. And then the referee will probably be escorted from the field for his own safety afterwards.

Such is football nowadays. Or what passes for football. Just because last weekend’s game between Tyrone and Armagh didn’t descend into the previous week’s Derry-Monaghan morass doesn’t mean football is fixed. It isn’t. It is struggling badly, saved now and again by the odd classic. By classic I mean a game where fear doesn’t rule the day and both teams manage not to maim anyone.

Gaelic football in 2009 is a game dominated by fitness and strength. It didn’t start out that way. Once upon a time, long, long ago, skill was first and foremost. The ball moved. A lot. With speed. And that’s football’s biggest problem. The ball just doesn’t move quickly enough. Instead we have the hand-pass that eventually gets the ball 30 or 40 yards from the opponent’s goal. Then the fear sets in. Lateral hand-passing across the field that resembles pass the parcel at a kid’s birthday party.

In the end, someone kicks a kamikaze ball towards the posts. He is the unlucky one, for it is he that is left with no choice but to shoot. Seven times out of 10 a terrible wide is borne. Eight times out of 10 if you are from Mayo. This is football and it will fill Croke Park on Sunday. Go figure.

Our attitude to Gaelic football is all wrong – on and off the field. The way it is played and the system it is played within. Yet we go through summer after summer convincing ourselves that everything is okay with the game. One game every year is held up as an example of the rude health of the big ball – Mayo and Dublin in 2007, the All-Ireland final last year – but really we are kidding ourselves. Tight matches are not classics just because they are close on the scoreboard. And games where players actually concentrate on the ball should not be hailed as masterpieces.

I enjoy a decently played game of football as much as the next man. Now and again that next man is Pat Spillane. I agree with Pat on many things and while this worries me, it doesn’t change the opinion. Football is sick a lot of the time.

This Sunday, Cork will play Kerry in a Munster semi-final and you couldn’t blame them if they threw the game. Every time Cork beat the Kingdom in Munster, the Green and Gold come back and usually hammer the life out of them in Croke Park. And then go on to win the All-Ireland.

No, if the Rebels were serious about winning the All-Ireland, they should lose to Kerry this weekend and keep their powder dry until Croke Park in August. Once there, they only need to shackle the Gooch. Illegally is probably the easiest way. With the current rules, three or four different backs could take a skelp out of him and none would be sent off. He could be pulled and dragged off the ball until he snaps. Once his frustration shows the nearest player could then go down like he has been shot, thereby getting the Gooch sent off and Kerry beaten.

That’s the blueprint. Ugly as it looks written down, if Cork don’t play the Gooch that way, someone else will. Our game allows it. Gaelic football in 2009 actually promotes it. Skill is neither protected nor encouraged. Kery move the ball quicker than any county.

This allows them to get the ball to players like the Gooch before the covering defenders get to him. Only Tyrone have perfected the method of cutting that route off at source. Most other counties take a shot at the Gooch. Cork are probably too clean for any of that. They could even beat Kerry on Sunday with good foootball, but where will it get them? No, if they’ve any sense they’ll roll over. Kerry to win here.

The Dubs? God bless ’em. Is it their year? Of course not. They will beat Meath and win Leinster but once the bandwagon starts to roll, the Jacks will get all nervous and lose their composure. But the Royals will naturally put it up to them. It’s in a Meathman’s blood to put it up to the Dubs. It’s in his water to hit a few of them.

I suppose I could sit through 75 minutes of pure unadulterated puke football if Meath actually have a chance of winning. I’m a softie for the underdog and there’s something about the Meath style of tough football that I like. I’m old enough to remember them in the ’80s and early ’90s. They were hard men. You pretty much had to kill a Meath footballer for him to go down. And even then you couldn’t be sure. Lyons, O’Rourke, Hayes, Harnan, Foley, Ferguson and the rest. They could give belts, but, God, could they take them.

That breed of warrior isn’t made anymore and we need it back in football. Fair shoulders and physicality that isn’t head high. Tough but fair football ensures the ball moves fast as players have to get rid of it. Too much play-acting nowadays and falling down. That wasn’t the Royal way. Neither was losing to the Dubs year in, year out. But that’s the modern game.

The Hill will be resplendent this Sunday. The sun will bring them all out to see their heroes progress. And their team will perform for the Dubs are at their most impressive in early June and July. It’s not until August that they run out of steam.
The Dublin hurlers, under my club man Anthony Daly, will experience the Hill for the first time. Good luck to them all. Let’s hope the supporters don’t leave it too late to come into the ground either for their only chance of proper culture is the hurling match!

For my sins I will stay around and sit through the football. Hopefully we will see plenty of it.

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