Locker Room: Paul Caffrey got a lot right on Saturday night, not least his appreciation of the venue and its trappings. Remembering the days when players got changed in what was a barely reconditioned shed at the Donnycarney end and spectators stood, if lucky, under some corrugated iron roofing on the Craobh Chiarain side Caffrey looked out at the illuminations of Parnell Park and thought aloud.

"The lights create their own atmosphere. Old Trafford is better under lights than on a Saturday afternoon. Lansdowne is more exciting under lights. There's a lot of people here tonight who'll remember the bad old days in this place and who will be very proud."

As such it was an interesting occasion with plenty of excitement thrown in. The novelty of the lights and the freshness of the evening set the stage and it was the opinion of both managers that evening National League games represent a way forward for the GAA.

The opinion there might not be quite unanimous. It is pleasant for players to get a rare Sunday off and evening games, should they become widespread, might be less disruptive of club schedules than the old arrangement. But for the players involved, especially in Friday night games played away from home, at least a half day from work is required. That comes on top of all the other demands and commitments. The Gaelic Players Association will be talking soon. Hopefully not into a void.

Whether the new rules will be part of the future of Gaelic games is another matter.

Superficially the game is more attractive at present but on both Friday in Cork and Saturday in Dublin forwards got away with things they wouldn't have tried last summer. As Mayo manager John Maughan said, you could see defenders pulling back from challenges for fear of getting a yellow card.

Should the rules remain the players will be more conflicted during the summer when the stakes are higher and the time for decision-making is halved. There could be chaos. There will be argument.

Still the experiment is worthwhile. The game of football has become too robustly muscular in recent years with consequent acceleration on the wear and tear of good players. The business of breaking tackles through strength has replaced the art of gliding past through stealth. What we have seen so far has redressed some of that.

On Saturday night, for instance, those of us eager to see what effect hours of practice have had on Tomás Quinn's free-taking were deprived of the chance. Dublin got two 45s and no kickable frees in the Mayo half. Can you remember a game like that?

There's a glitch in the procedures for goalkeepers. When a goalkeeper draws a yellow card, as Stephen Cluxton did on Saturday night, he is almost always going to concede a penalty in the process. Not permitting his replacement to enter the pitch until the penalty has been taken makes the punishment disproportionate in terms of other crimes.

Otherwise the main flaw is the inelegance of picking the ball from the ground. A one-handed scoop would be fine as an alternative to the traditional bend and lift but seeing players leaning over and picking up the ball as if it were a bucket of water takes from the aesthetics of the game. The new rules regarding yellow cards should be sufficient to deter defending players from toppling players who are leaning to fetch a ball on the ground.

Having said all that nobody left Parnell Park on Saturday night complaining. It was one of those occasions so filled with novelty and excitement that it made one long for the summer instead of counting the number of dreary league weekends remaining before the championship kicks in.

In a way it was an evening about managers. Paul Caffrey's debut and John Maughan's return to the stage.

Maughan's remarkable achievements in Clare, Mayo and on the club scene are often forgotten by those who remember the last big match a side of his lost. Yet there are very few managers of his talent in the game. His misfortune perhaps, especially in Mayo, is to lead the representative side of a county whose innate self-confidence boils over dangerously any time they approach the big stage. Football is seldom the problem for Mayo. Their heads are the problem. Too quick to be filled with crazy confidence. Too quick to drop again.

Maughan commented on Saturday evening that footballers are resilient, more resilient than management and backroom staff, and you can see in him how the latest big setback to befall him in Croke Park has taken its toll.

He's a more laid-back figure now than he was a decade or so ago though, less rigid and less likely to make the mistake of excessive use of the whip on his team.

From now, he said, the talk is about the National Football League and moving forward from here. He seemed pleased by that. New year. New chapter. No looking back in anger.

They'll be around for some time to come, Maughan and this Mayo team. Maughan is skilled enough to patch up the David Brady impasse and together with Ronan McGarrity, Brady will continue to provide a midfield platform for a forward line which looks like it will get even better this summer as Damien Munnelly, Austin O'Malley and Marty McNicholas step up the pressure.

As for the Dubs it would be premature articulation to say that they turned a corner on Saturday. What they did do, however, was to suggest that they might rediscover the old goalscoring swagger. Suddenly they look to have forward options.

Young Mark Vaughan, who was missing from Parnell Park, is untameable and unpredictable and might give the sort of electric shock to the Dublin attack which Jason Sherlock provided a decade ago.

Jayo himself missed three or four good goal chances on Saturday but continues to be perhaps the best forward in the capital, with his distribution and work rate still exemplary. David O'Callaghan looks like an addition. Alan Brogan has still to come back fully and if Conal Keaney can do a job at full forward with Robbie Boyle and Ian Robertson as back-up well Dublin are half way there.

Senan Connell still has that explosive pace and Declan Lally looks like he could become the sort of wing forward Dublin have been lacking for a while. Then there is Tomás Quinn who, one suspects, is on the verge of a big season.

All that is very tasty indeed. The worry is elsewhere. Darren Magee's departure for Australia was untimely in the extreme. Ciarán Whelan can have 20 minutes a game where he looks like the best midfielder in the country. But that's it. Shane Ryan on Saturday had some good patches but he's a wing back at heart.

Dublin have a lot of decent footballers in their defence but not enough of the sort of guys who make you think twice about going near them. There's no terror there, no presence to force forwards to shut their eyes and deliver a Hail-Mary pass to somewhere, anywhere rather than get caught in possession.

Then again maybe the rules will change this spring and make such figures extinct.

For now the season is up and running and every pauper has the right to dream of a principality.