A FEW years ago, an Ulster Championship opener featuring Donegal and Tyrone would have been considered a difficult winner to call.
On Sunday, few will fancy Tyrone for a number of reasons.
No matter how you dress it up, a poor National League campaign can impact the performances of an Ulster team when it comes to the Championship.
Personally, I always aspired to playing some of my best football around May, ensuring that in the latter end of the League, I had an edge that would ensure that I was indispensable when it came to naming the Championship line-up and I wouldn't be left sweating until the day of the first round game.
Unlike the other provinces, Ulster is highly competitive and the most difficult to play in without doubt.
A League really does not carry much significance for counties like Dublin, Kerry, Cork or Mayo.
Given the current standard of opposition and the fact that these teams are virtually guaranteed a quarter-final place, National League games are relegated to a series of glorified challenge matches which either help blood a few new faces or the team uses it as a chance to get accustomed to playing Ulster opposition and breaking down defensive systems.
I never remember a Championship season stacked so heavily in favor of both Kerry and Dublin.
But then again, why would I considering that I was not even a thought in the 1970s when few teams outside of Dublin and Kerry could realistically stand a chance of winning ‘Sam’?
I just wonder what the players of Down, Armagh, Kildare and Roscommon think and do they really believe they could win an All-Ireland?
I always held the view that I would retire from inter-county football when I no longer believed that we could compete for an Ulster title or in fact an All-Ireland.
In the end, frustrated by injuries and generally the way that football was heading, I no longer believed and had neither the enthusiasm nor the belief to go to the well once more.
Contrast this to my late teens and early 20's - where naively or stupidly - I thought we could win an Ulster title or All-Ireland title any year.
Why I use words, ‘naively’ and ‘stupidity’ is very subjective retrospectively.
Few supporters, or people close to me, felt we could do either but I was always confident we could outgun anyone on any given day and all we needed was a bit of luck. If a few decisions went our way, we could do anything.
Each year brought renewed hope and something happened in the League or early rounds of the Championship that convinced me that this season could be different.
At that time, during my playing career, Ulster teams were still dominating and winning All-Irelands so we could be easily convinced that, should we beat Tyrone or Armagh, which we did on a few occasions in the League and Championship, things could turn in our favour.
In addition, we always felt that we had players who would rightly claim to be able to get into any other team in the country.
If you were to pick 15 players from this year’s Division One teams of the National League and ‘the best of the rest’ from the remaining three Divisions, how many do you think would be able to walk onto the Division one team?
Ok, there is Jamie Clarke and perhaps one or two others but they are very few.
I would suspect that very few lower Division players would get into the team, never mind the panel.
The gulf has become just too great and too heavily stacked in favor of the Dublin's and Kerry's of this world.
When Down, Derry and Donegal came out of nowhere to win All-Irelands in the early 1990’s and again Donegal in 2012, they became the exception rather than the rule.
I would presume that as a player in the Down, Armagh, Kildare or Roscommon squad, the landscape is changing and it is becoming much more difficult to sell the provincial or All-Ireland pipe-dream.
Is there even a provincial title in any of these teams?
If Donegal were not as strong, perhaps there is, but with Tyrone emerging with a few U21s who may or may not break through and Kerry and Dublin only getting stronger nationally, the remaining Ulster teams have their work cut-out to make any impact at all.
Dublin and Kerry both have an enviable conveyor belt of talent year in year out and the question this weekend is really what kind of summer do we expect?
The result may be heavily stacked in Donegal’s favor given that the game is in Ballybofey and given Tyrone’s poor League form but the manner of the win or defeat for either team will give us a good indication of what to expect from one of the Ulster heavyweights.
Personally, I cannot see anything other than a Donegal win.
Do not underestimate how incredibly important a good free-taker is for any team and in Murphy, Donegal have the best around.
When you play a defensive game, most players will give up frees no matter how disciplined they are.
Add into this a few refereeing decisions going against you and you could have four or five scores which would break any team’s willpower, especially one as fragile as Tyrone’s.
The question for Donegal will be the team’s ability to maintain the intensity that took them to the All-Ireland final last year. The psychological difference between winning and All-Ireland and losing one is huge.
Win one and you could rightly relax into your inherent belief that you are good enough.
Lose one and not only do you question yourself but you also question your team-mates and perhaps come to a different conclusion.
Even worse is to question whether the manager is good enough to take you back for redemption.
As McGuinness is now sitting high up in the Sky commentary box, Gallagher will find himself seeking senior player approval this year and the best way of gaining their trust is winning matches and making good decisions when the game is in the melting pot.
Mickey Harte is in a different place.
Under severe pressure, he has tried his best to get on with leading Tyrone back into contention.
Rightly or wrongly, the players available to him are just not in the same calibre as the guys who served him so well in the past.
And to be fair, when any manager puts the players on the field, they should be capable at inter-county level to deliver results on a regular basis.
At the end of the day, it would not matter who is in charge of Tyrone, they are just not title contenders at the minute, although this could change with the development of a few talented U21s.
As Fermanagh boss Pete McGrath has demonstrated recently, there is no substitute for experience and whether you love or hate Tyrone, you have to respect what Mickey Harte has done.
While this may not provide much consolation to Tyrone fans should they lose on Sunday, ask yourself about the great days, the winning titles and the history achieved within five short years in the noughties under his stewardship.
At the end of the day, the alternative for Tyrone football is what?
The players will believe they can win regardless of the thoughts of supporters, family and friends. I was no different when I was in their bubble.
And on any given Sunday...
