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

We’re up and running. Last weekend felt like a championship weekend, despite the competing attractions, writes Emmet Moloney...

We’re only a couple of weeks in and so far we’ve seen some football, plenty of hurling and – naturally – the first one or two controversies of the summer are taking shape. There’s been lots of good so far. Let’s start with that. Cork and Tipp was a cracker and we needed it. The champions had to dig a little deeper than expected but they did and their big men did the heavy lifting. It’s a long summer to maintain that standard; right now that is the only chink we can see in the Tipperary armoury.

The bad was the attendance in Thurles. Only 31,000 to see these two in the Munster championship? In Thurles? After all that happened to both teams last year? Dress it up any way you want, this is not good. Christy Cooney did a neat sidestep last week when discussing ticket prices for this match and football matches in Ulster, pointing out correctly that provincial councils set these prices. To suggest that Croke Park have absolutely no influence over provincial councils, however, is a little rich. About as rich as some stand tickets are going for. Regardless of the value and regardless of the price comparison with other sports, we need to address attendances. At the top level our games cannot become TV spectacles only.

There was good too in Croke Park. Dublin did the needful in winning and Offaly did the usual Offaly thing, ending up closer than they should have been and scaring the life out of the league champions.

Not too much bad here except for the one question that needs to be asked: with time running out and Offaly down two points, instead of Peadar Carton grabbing the late Dublin goal to seal the game, what would have happened if Offaly had grabbed a point and lost by only one white flag? I ask this because the two umpires at the Hill 16 end waved a Dublin point to start the match, when the entire stadium knew it was wide. What was the linesman doing at the Hogan Stand side of the field? Could he not see it? When TV pictures can conclusively prove a sliotar did not go over the bar, as they did, then you know it is clearly a wide! Again – how long do we wait before action is taken here? Genuine human error can be mostly eliminated by technology.

It will happen, GAA referees will eventually be seen to make the square sign language signal for the video ref. It will just take a monumental error to finally bring it in, like a team waiting for 50-odd years to win a provincial title and it being taken away from them by an illegal goal in the dying seconds of a Leinster final …

It’s why we love the GAA. In 2011 we can bounce a satellite signal hundreds of miles into space from our mobile phone but a referee has to halt play, run towards his linesman who will meet him halfway, chat for a moment, then the ref will run back into the middle of the field while the linesman goes scurrying to the community games table to tell the man with the neon sign to hold up three minutes’ injury time. I suppose we wouldn’t have it any other way.

They certainly wouldn’t have it any other way in Meath this week. As build-ups go for their Leinster quarter-final with Kildare in Croker on Sunday, this will not have been a dull one. Enter Graham Geraghty – the type of star only the GAA could make.

There’s a touch of the Saipans in the Royal County these last few days. Should the 38-year-old have been summoned from retirement to answer the call? Should the selectors Harnon and O’Callaghan have walked when they heard the news? Of course, the real burning question in Meath is whether an “outside manager” should have been appointed in the first place?

You couldn’t make this stuff up and it’s why the GAA is compulsive. Where else would you get managers called Banty and Geezer opposing each other on the sideline?

The Sunday Game will once again own the afternoon as we flit in and out of Sunday’s match. “Is he on yet?” will be asked in every living room and kitchen and quite a few bars. “He” is the one-time blond bombshell, one-time Aussie Rules victim, one-time politician and all-the-time personality. Say what you like about Graham Geraghty, he has been asked to give it one last go and he’s said, ‘yes, my county needs me, I’ll be there’. The beauty of his selection in the squad is of course that Banty has to play him now at some stage. You can’t lose two selectors, divide the county and not play him!

This is all good. Football sometimes needs a little bit of the off-the-field drama to spice it up and comebacks, real or imaginary, are great for business. The bad will come for Seamus McEnaney (Banty) for his time in Meath will be short and hardly sweet. An All-Ireland this year for the Royal County or they will never again pay mileage for a man to travel from outside their borders. That’s unlikely unless Mick Lyons, Colm O’Rourke and David Beggy can be persuaded to tog out!

There could be something very good happening in the Gaelic Grounds this weekend too. Saturday could be worth watching for the latest chapter of Limerick footballers throwing away their chance to beat Kerry. This soap opera surely has to end with the underdogs winning just once.

Well, if it ever is to happen it’s this Saturday night. Shorn of their leader and inspiration in John Galvin, the home side certainly can’t want for motivation because Kerry have almost blackguarded them (kind of) the last few times they have met. Now Kerry have only one Ó Sé on the field, the other Galvin in reserve and a date with Cork in the Munster final firmly on their minds.

Saturday is the night to catch them. Finally. Now that would be good.
To catch Emmet's latest column, get 'The Irish Farmers' Journal' every Thursday...