Tailteann Cup hitting all the right notes in its inaugural year

The buzz on Jones' Road on Sunday was palpable.

Fans of Cavan, Sligo, Westmeath and Offaly converged on Croke Park with a pep in the step. Heading to HQ with firm aspirations of securing championship silverware was a new experience for those involved.

That in its own right was refreshing. For Leinster counties in particular, Croker has been synonymous with drubbings.

But what the 16,616 in attendance were treated to was a double-header of four counties playing with adventure and a belief that they could win a competition.

These were not teams crippled with a fear that they had to set up in an ultra-defensive manner, hoping to keep the score respectable against one of the heavyweights, rather than having a go and suffering a 20-point hammering which could derail a season.

The residual damage of such hammerings have been clear in the past.

"Some of those games against Dublin...the drop-off rate the following year, guys thinking 'hang on a minute, is it worth hanging around for that?'" explained Longford's Mickey Quinn last month.

Instead, the four sides played without fear. The Yeats left nothing behind, had a cut off the tournament favourites and were left to rue some wayward shooting late on.

The Connacht side had not won a championship game on Irish soil since 2017. But Tony McEntee's charges built real momentum with wins over London and Leitrim in recent weeks, and made a mockery of widespread predictions that the 2020 Ulster champions would canter to an easy victory.

While it did not happen for the Faithful County against Westmeath, the high-scoring contest (3-22 to 2-16) was produced by two teams with no fear of one another. It was an open and end-to-end championship game that has been all too rare at the top level.

There is no doubting that the inaugural Tailteann Cup is proving a hit.

"As the seanfhocal says: tús maith, leath na hoibre. A good start us half the battle and what we have seen so far in the Tailteann Cup has been very exciting," wrote GAA president Larry McCarthy in Sunday's match programme.

"We have seen close and competitive games; we've had extra-time and also needed penalties to decide the final four that we have today, each of whom is playing to advance and contest the first ever Tailteann Cup football final.

"In the last 10 years, there have been 183 occasions where the margin between teams in the SFC has been 10 points or more. The hope for this new format in football is to have fewer days like that."

'Uncharted territory'

The football championship is still far from perfect. The GAA's Congress missed an open goal last October when 'Proposal B' was not passed. And as long as the provinces remain linked to the championship, mismatches will remain.

But what the Tailteann Cup offers is hope.

"There's potential for some team to grab this by the scruff of the neck and march through the summer and have a great summer with it," McCarthy said at last month's launch.

And Westmeath have certainly grabbed it by the scruff of the neck.

"Silverware is silverware, and we've a lot of lads who put a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of commitment into the maroon and white, and don't have an awful lot to show for it," said Lake County boss Jack Cooney, after their win over Offaly.

"So, whether it's a Tailteann Cup or a Division 3 or Division 2, whatever it is, that's valued very, very highly. And I think that, more so than anything else, would be a huge incentive for the lads now.

"We have never been in a position where we were working to the last game of the season. We're in uncharted territory here, so we're really, really going to enjoy it, knowing that three weeks' time is our last game of the season. That's going to present new challenges, but it's also pretty exciting.

"I'm hoping that as a result of our trip up here today, and our trip in a few weeks' time, that that is going to drive those guys on to want to be better and to be part of this, because it is a long-term project for us to try and get to a higher standard and get to a higher level consistently.

"But the last few weeks have been excellent. After the Kildare game, we literally went in and addressed it in the dressing-rooms straight away. And we said, 'Let's go at this and let's commit to this.' And the lads have, and now we're down to the last game of the season, so hopefully it will work out."

Cooney's rhetoric was in stark contrast to his tone when Westmeath's season ended two years ago, with a Leinster quarter-final defeat to Dublin.

"It was a daunting task for us but I'm very proud of the attitude and honesty from the lads right to the final whistle," he said in the wake of their defeat in 2020.

"We all know that Dublin can put teams away and they show no mercy. I thought our lads battled and showed great honesty, particularly in the backline.

"We really didn't give them a goal chance and I thought we created two decent goal opportunities that could have made the scoreline look a lot healthier from our perspective."

Rather than picking positives and moral victories out of inevitable defeats, Division 3 and 4 counties now have tangible dreams of ending their year with championship silverware in the Tailteann Cup.

And with the inaugural year already widely deemed a success, the future is bright for the tiered football championship.