Inter-county code of silence not helping the sport

We're back for the final block of Allianz Football League games, but the championship is looming large in teams' minds.

It's amazing to think that between our last league game in 2012 - the league final no less - and our first championship game that summer, there was an eight-week gap. Eight weeks!

We lost to Cork in the league decider on 29 April and weren't out again until we gave Leitrim a bit of a going over in the Connacht semi-final on 24 June. (Our friends at Wikipedia have confirmed this in case anyone thinks I have a superhuman memory). It's a far cry from last year when Mayo won the league and then Roscommon sucker-punched them the week after.

We're less than a month out from championship for most teams and there's still plenty of storylines left to run in the league.

It will be interesting to get a sense of teams' priorities in the next couple of weeks and their intentions as far as the league goes.

For my part, I'm on TV duty in Salthill this weekend, where not getting blown off the punditry gantry by an Atlantic gale will be a plus. Letting ye on a secret, I understand I'll be joined by one Tomás Ó Sé in his first punditry assignment of the year. Two sets of All-Ireland champions are descending on Galway city.

Dublin and Kerry, I'd say, will be keen on chasing a league final appearance. Why not? Their provincial championships haven't proved to be too taxing in the past decade or so. Kerry may have to navigate Cork but you'd expect them to have too much class for that, especially in Killarney.

Despite resting a few for the Dublin game, Derry are in the frame of mind where they're chasing any and every piece of silverware.

Kevin McStay didn't seem too enamoured of the idea of contesting a league final and I suspect