Smell of want overpowering as Kerry and Mayo jockey to fill the vacuum

With the Dubs currently floundering around, struggling to adjust to this strange new reality where they are not winning every game all the time, their immediate challengers are jockeying for position.

The obvious trio - we know who they are - naturally scent an opportunity in the exciting power vacuum that has developed. Who will fill that vacuum? (Of course, the beaten down will insist that said vacuum fillers could in fact be the Dubs again, if they recover their senses but anyhow...)

First, a word on last year's smash-and-grab All-Ireland champions, who are in the midst of an underwhelming spring.

Tyrone - though 2021 has taught us not to read much into their league form - are flirting with the drop, with only a draw against Monaghan and a dicey victory over Kildare to their name so far. The county also has a reputation, inherited from the noughties, of mounting peculiarly abject title defences, though this is surely of limited relevance to the current crop.

They were, after all, high on their first wave of All-Ireland success in the 2000s and may not have been psychologically primed for back-to-back tilts. But this is now their second era of All-Ireland success. They now have the characteristics of a 'permanent' top table team. Back-to-back titles will hardly be beyond their ken, even if they do have to navigate the sharks in Ulster.

The two other main challengers meet in Tralee on Saturday evening. Were the GAA to scrap the needless and extraneous League finals, we could almost bill the game as a Division 1 decider.

For obvious reasons, both Kerry and Mayo are ravenously hungry at this point. The smell of want whenever the two meet these days is overpowering, capable of knocking everyone out within a 10-mile radius.

Logica