No sniggering at the back, please, but we're going to start with a history lesson. In the receding past - only readers with long-term memories will remember - there was a time when Ulster's Gaelic football strength was the envy of the country. It was a fabled era when the province's football and hurling champions travelled to Croke Park each August with expectation far outweighing hope.
Ah, happy days. They were innocent times. If only we could have appreciated them more, because each new body blow of the past few months has emphasised just how far Ulster has fallen from its previous lofty perch. Will we ever see those salad days again?
The rot, if truth be told, has been setting in for a while. Derry's abject All-Ireland semi-final performance last August against Galway represented the third time in a row that an Ulster side had failed to reach the All-Ireland final: the last success was Tyrone in the "point that wasn't" decider against Dublin in 1995.
If Ulster fails again next summer it will be a sequence just as fallow as the dark period of 1987-90. After that, we could be into freefall, and a repeat of the eight-year horror story that was 1978-85, when the Ulster champions failed to get past a single semi-final, may be a very real possibility.
There is genuine concern in GAA circles here that it really is that serious. The perpetual under-achievement of the Connacht representatives during the 1990s had been a source of solace, even when Ulster's champions were performing just as poorly. But Galway's virtuoso All-Ireland in September blew away any of that complacency, and by common consent Ulster has now fallen behind the other three provinces in terms of both achievements and standards.
The National Football League may not be the most accurate of football barometers, but right now it's the only one we have. On day one, a fortnight ago, only three Ulster counties won their encounters, while last Sunday, amid the plethora of draws, there were again only three wins (one of those was notched up by Antrim in Kilkenny, but, hey, we're desperate). This, remember, is a competition in which Ulster counties used to excel. Alright, perhaps it was a pursuit of excellence driven by over-reaching hunger for success and encouraged by surrounding indifference, but somebody had to win, didn't they?
Last week's All Star nominations were another jolt and another indication of which way the wind is blowing. Five from 45 isn't just paltry, it's verging on embarrassing. Down and Tyrone were ignored altogether. Not even the provincial champions, Derry, were spared, managing just one nomination - Sean Martin Lockhart. Of the other provincial champions, Galway and Kildare have 13 each, while even a mediocre Kerry side were judged worthy of four. If the snub wasn't exactly calculated, it still hit where it hurts.
How has it come to this? From the highwater mark of Down's second All-Ireland of the decade in 1994, completing a four-in-a-row sweep for Ulster, the province has been reduced to All-Ireland semi-final embarrassments, league mediocrity and All Stars oblivion.
The perverse answer is that the All-Ireland success of the 1990s simply became too unwieldy and, faced with the shock of the new, many of Ulster's counties did what they do best - turn in on themselves. Derry went through their well-publicised internal strife with the exit of Eamonn Coleman (though that wheel has now come full circle). Down lost momentum as Peter McGrath came to the rather alarming realisation that his new players weren't as good as O'Rourke, Blaney, et al, who had called it a day. In Tyrone, meanwhile, an already competitive club scene threatened to get completely out of control as old enmities were allowed to fester.
Running in parallel with this was the decline of the Ulster universities in the competition they once dominated, the Sigerson Cup. Fittingly, the trophy had been presented by Dr George Sigerson, a Strabane-born professor in UCD, in 1911, and, as Ulster regrouped during the late 1980s it was the Sigerson that many players targeted as their route into the big time.
For county men whose national experience was limited to frustrating league campaigns and even shorter Championship runs, this was an opportunity to experience intensive, focussed training and professionally managed preparation. Between 1986 and 1993 Ulster colleges won six of the eight Sigersons, and many of the medal winners went on to form the back-bone of the Down, Derry and Tyrone sides that shone so brightly the following decade.
But in recent times the lustre of the Sigerson has been diminished. With year-round county training now a reality, and with the intensity of county championships growing, there are just so many demands on young players that something has to give. It's a strong young man who stands up to both his club and county manager, but the result has been that something of the fertile breeding ground of the past has been lost. Now, though, the Ulster Council has acted bravely to halt the decline. Last week they decided to ditch the traditional two-year cycle, whereby the same counties met on a home and away basis, in favour of a completely open draw. The resulting draw last Sunday night has been nothing short of invigorating for football here.
The meeting of the last two provincial champions, Cavan and Derry, is the standout first round pairing. Tyrone, meanwhile, have avoided the ill-tempered hothouse that has been meetings with Derry in recent seasons ("until the final", he said with supreme, misguided optimism). The last time Down were freed from the shackles of yet another preliminary round game James McCartan was a fresh-faced lad just out of short trousers. But now they can look forward to the tasty prospect of a first round game at home to Antrim, leaving Monaghan and Fermanagh to the preliminary backwaters.
The most significant thing is that all this is new, not a rehash of what has gone before. With the added frisson of a new television deal, as BBC Northern Ireland return to the fray after five years, there is genuine anticipation surrounding the months ahead. The Ulster Council is to be applauded for its foresight. All we need now is some decent football. That's not too much to ask. Is it?
