GAELIC GAMES NFL:TOMORROW EVENING sees the start of the 2011 football season and the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the calendar-year league. That summer, the championship qualifier system was introduced and the two innovations have had a seismic impact on the game.

During that period five league winners have added the All-Ireland championship later in the year – the same number as recorded the double in the previous 30 years.

The calendar year format has had obvious advantages for confidence and momentum but only the first two teams in the sequence, Tyrone in 2003 and Kerry a year later, actually won the All-Ireland without the help of the qualifiers.

Given the experience of the old league that makes sense. Frequently in the past counties found it too hard to sustain a successful summer after winning the spring title. Coming down after victory posed a challenge that sometimes toppled sides relatively early in the provincial championship and rarely led to All-Ireland success.

Significantly, there was a greater tendency to follow up a league title with a provincial win in the period 1980-2000 (15 times or 75 per cent) than in the 10 years that followed during which yielded a 30 per cent conversion rate. In other words NFL winners were more likely to win All-Irelands than their province in the succeeding championship.

This reflected the diminishing importance of the provincial titles in the greater scheme of things.

Aside from the five counties – Kerry (2004, ’06 and ’09), Tyrone (2003) and Cork (2010) – that have recorded the double in the past 10 years, the other All-Ireland winners made a strong impact in the league. The first county to take home the Sam Maguire having been beaten in their province was Galway, who had lost the previous league final to Mayo.

(This led Cavan manager Matt Kerrigan to remark after losing the 2002 Division One final to Tyrone to remark optimistically: “I think Galway lost the league final last year.” Tyrone joint manager Eugene McKenna cautioned, “I don’t think you’ll find too many of our fellas celebrating. They’re fairly abstemious”.)

That same year Armagh reached the semi-finals of the Division Two competition before going on to win a first All-Ireland, oddly enough beating Kerry who had won that divisional title.

The only exceptions to the rule of league progress were Kerry in 2007 and Tyrone a year later, neither of whom reached the play-offs but who were both winning their third All-Ireland title and had become fairly practised in making their way through the summer.

Interestingly the five counties who didn’t follow the league with championship success nearly all had conspicuously disappointing summers. Mayo 10 years ago lost the Connacht final to Roscommon and were eliminated in the qualifiers by Westmeath.

Twelve months on, Tyrone were defeated by Armagh in the Ulster first round and, at the time, sensationally in the qualifiers by Sligo (who proved their merits by later taking Armagh to a replay).

Probably the two most under-achieving NFL holders were Donegal in 2007, who went on to be well beaten by Tyrone in Ulster and Monaghan in the qualifiers, and Derry in 2008, also eliminated by fellow provincials Fermanagh and Monaghan respectively.

Most unlucky during the 10 years were Armagh, who won the league in 2005 with a big win over Wexford, added the Ulster title after a replay with Tyrone only to lose to the latter by a point in the All-Ireland semi-final a month later.

In the past two seasons there has been further indications of the extent to which counties use the league to purge bad memories and re-establish confidence. Last year Cork, having lost two All-Ireland finals and prolonged their awful Croke Park record against Kerry to zero from seven, powered through the league and went to take the big prize for the first time in 20 years. Kerry have followed up all three championship defeats by Tyrone (2003, ’05 and ’08) by coming back to win the double the following year.

So whatever managers have to say this weekend about trying out new players and team building, the smarter ones will be thinking along different lines.