GAELIC GAMES:WITH NE'ER a football to be kicked this weekend, it feels like the sport can breathe out for the first time since Roscommon traipsed over to New York a full 15 weeks ago. We're at base camp before the last push for the summit.

Seems like a good time to take a look around and gauge what’s up ahead.

Johnny Doyle is no lover of the spare time he has on his hands these days but he’s made an arrangement with it by now. Next year is sitting there waiting for him and when it comes he’ll throw himself into in again. For now though, he’s as good a man to turn to as any for perspective on where the championship goes from here.

He was left on his hunkers by both Dublin and Donegal this summer, coming out the other end of single-pointers on both occasions. Hardly the most enjoyable way to gain insight but worth more than a thousand hours watching from the stands all the same.

“The place you have to start with Dublin is Stephen Cluxton’s kick-outs,” he says. “Everything comes from him. That’s one of the real strong points Dublin have. The thing about them is, you can stare at them and study them all day but there doesn’t seem to be any real system to them.

“There’s no set pattern, as far as we were able to work out. Lads make the run and he hits them, simple as that. He looks for the runner and picks him out. There’s no signal, there’s no way that, say, every second one goes to Alan Brogan or anything like that. Two or three lads give him an option and he decides which one he wants to hit.

“He makes a huge difference because it takes the 50-50 out of the thing. Then they break with very strong runners in Bryan Cullen and Paul Flynn. Barry Cahill was there the last day and did some job for them.”

And Donegal?

“The difference with Donegal is that when they break, it could be anybody making the break. It won’t just be one of the half-forwards or a midfielder.

“You could find a corner-forward flying up the pitch past you. Colm McFadden and Michael Murphy stay up and the rest just seem to get behind the ball.

“And they seem to invite you to come onto them. You can pick up the ball from your full-back line and nobody comes to you.

“But once it’s turned over, they all go for it. They take it on the burst and there’s lads going anywhere. They play their own game and they are in their own groove. Traditionalists might not like to watch it and neutrals hoping for a big open game might not like it but it’s effective and it’s working for them. You can’t ask for more than that.”

Like most of the country, he is leaning towards Dublin. Like most of the country, he’s wondering is that really wise. For all we’ve seen of both teams through the summer, we need affirmation before we fully trust. Doyle is no different.

“Judging it on the two quarter-finals, Dublin probably have a bit too much up front. But are we judging Dublin totally on the Tyrone game? Wexford could have beaten them but do we just put that to one side now? It’s a difficult one. We can see what they’re capable of now and if the likes of Diarmuid Connolly can keep up that level of performance, then they should take it.”

As for the other semi-final, Doyle tries a few different doors but the same reality looks to be sitting behind all of them. Any way he turns it, Kerry have the upper hand. Even if Mayo can make a game of it, it’s hard to see them being ahead when the music stops. The warning from Down last year echoes still.

“Kerry have really only had to play one half of football all year but it was textbook football. You couldn’t see better. They left Cork hanging in there for plenty of the game afterwards but they still came through it. They’re at a stage where they know how to win tight games. That gets overlooked but it’s so important. They don’t panic, nothing seems to faze them and they just know what they have to do. You don’t really worry about Kerry getting caught like you would other teams.

“Nobody, myself included, saw Mayo beating Cork. If you put yourself in their shoes now, nobody’s giving them a chance. If they win, they’re in an All-Ireland final and if they lose, well they weren’t supposed to win anyway. For us looking in, there’s no real pressure on them.

“But if you’re a player in that dressingroom, you’re going out there for one thing and one thing only. You’re going out to win. They’ll look to find a weak link, they’ll probably man mark a few of the forwards and take it from there. But you just feel that if they manage to tie up Gooch, then Declan O’Sullivan or Darran O’Sullivan will just run into the space that’s freed up.”