Surely we won't be fooled again by Kerry

A championship preview before Easter! No sooner have we ingested the implications of the league than we're into it again.

The 2022 championship will be a valedictory one for the 'qualifier' system, much to the chagrin of those who felt the format should have been put out of its misery certainly last autumn and probably several years before that.

Originally a compromise arrangement concocted by Paraic Duffy and his working group in the autumn of 2000, the qualifier format enters its 22nd and final season this year. Hard to recall now but it was a head-spinning change once upon a time, to a people reared on the sanctity and immutability of knockout championship.

In those innocent days, it was a curious spectacle to see vanquished teams troop out again in the hazy June sunshine of a Saturday evening in a provincial ground on the far side of the country. It served us well for a time.

Counties such as Fermanagh and Wexford - strangers to championship silverware, at least in modern times - embarked on sallies deep into the summer via the back door. But it has outstayed its welcome for a good few years.

From 2023 onwards, it will be replaced by what people are still wont to term the 'green proposal', a kind of engorged version of the Super 8s, with league performance now built into the structure. This, again, is a compromise arrangement. Such is how change occurs in the association.

More abrupt as far as the casual fan is concerned is the change in the calendar, the All-Ireland finals now done and dusted by the end of July. 'Fixing' the Gaelic Games calendar is an impossibility given the welter of competing interests involved, all jostling for space in the limited schedule, but there are fair concerns about the GAA disappearing from