Raising a clenched fist to over-analysis of the game

The clenched fist. A powerful symbol of pride, fight, courage and victory. It has been used no doubt for millennia as an instinctive human reaction but I wonder if it's ever had a busier weekend than that just past.

From Celtic Park and the Athletic Grounds on Saturday evening to Healy Park and Hyde Park, Brewster to Breffini and all the way to Aughrim and Ardee on Sunday.

Throughout the country, throughout the divisions, it was there. Some were quiet, personal moments for players simply happy that they’d nailed a task. Many however, were raucous roars of passion and pride, or, as Mattie Donnelly brilliantly put it, "defiance".

Top of the heap was Darragh Canavan’s. He almost combusted with a strange double fist drive as he crowned his county's stunning display of 'Tyroneyness’ against Kerry, winning a crucial late free.

Without the context it could look daft. Yet not a person in Omagh or watching on TV were in any doubt of how fitting it was.

When RTÉ approached me regarding writing a column they wanted pieces slanted towards the tactical end of things. It is a part of the game that has developed beyond all recognition from even a decade ago.

The army of people involved with the inter-county teams is only beaten by the army of people involved in podcasts, newspapers and TV coverage, whose job it is to try to analyse things.

The worst thing to come out of all this is a penchant to over-analyse. We see patterns where there are none; read far too much into simple moves.

More often than not a good player may simply have identified in real time something that needed doing. We are fast reaching a stage where a young player would think that everything that happens on a pitch is pre-ordained and every skill or move was somehow taught