A year ago, football was in crisis - up to a point. Both of last year's All-Ireland semi-finals had disappointed and this newspaper ran an obligatory piece on the "State of Gaelic football". Whereas the Mayo-Cork match had been depressed by Mayo's familiar attacking inadequacies, the Armagh-Meath semi-final had a more thoroughly depressing effect and as the later of the two matches, it set the tone for a season which had only one match remaining.
It featured an overcrowded middle sector scrapping for the ball and trying unsuccessfully - until Trevor Giles found his range in the second half - to pick out isolated forwards marooned up around the opposition goal. When this actually happened, at times endemic inaccuracy led to a dismal sequence of wides. It was awful stuff.
Twelve months on and everything's changed. This time, Armagh played Kerry and their gameplan played its part in an absorbing clash of styles between claustrophobic defending and exuberant attack. Next Saturday the fixture will (we hope) be played out to its conclusion.
Three days ago Galway lifted everyone's hearts a little further when their forward-driven agenda prevailed against Kildare's more prosaic patterns. Never mind that their defence was a little too frequently in trouble, the match was decided by the afternoon's outstanding performers, Padraig Joyce and Michael Donnellan.
Yet it's possible to sense that the feel-good factor is a bit overdone. The game remains - just about - an amateur sport. Teams have no obligation to put on a show for the huge attendances that attend big matches. There is no transfer market - yet - where managers can go and acquire players they need or admire for the purpose of team building.
In other words the type of players available to the two counties dictated the difference between Galway and Kildare. John O'Mahony knows his tactics should be directed at getting the ball into the forwards as often as possible. He deploys his team accordingly.
Mick O'Dwyer's task was different. His team's strength lay further back and was centred on the half-back line. This was his side's springboard. Further up, the attack showed some change for the better but not enough to do the requisite damage at All-Ireland level.
In criticising Kildare's tactics, people may have an aesthetic point but the general dissatisfaction with their short game isn't entirely O'Dywer's fault. He plays the hand he's been dealt. An All-Ireland winning selector made the point to me a few years ago amidst the Football Development Committee's mission statements on restoring the primacy of kicking and the experimental restrictions on the hand pass.
As long as, he said, the game is played within the rules, why should there be concern about what styles are adopted. He actually mentioned Kildare, then - as now - regarded as the enemies of the primacy of kicking and made the point that if the short game was what best suited the type of players at Kildare's disposal, why should the rules be tweaked to discriminate against their - or others - style of play.
Football teams are composed of amateurs whose only obligation is to try and win as strenuously as possible within the rules. Kildare have done that throughout the campaign and O'Dwyer drilled them to be able to do so. On Sunday they met a team which was simply a better footballing unit and they lost.
While O'Dwyer contemplates his future, Kildare are predictably anxious that he will stay on for a further year at least. It's not hard to work out why. In 10 years, the county has progressed from a position of out-and-out mediocrity through a painful apprenticeship to being a top Leinster county with two provincial titles under their belt in three years.
At the end of a management career that includes what's widely regarded as the best football team in history - certainly the most impressive record of achievement - O'Dwyer has accomplished something equally valuable in Kildare. He has reawoken a football-mad county and returned it the good times even if an All-Ireland seems just beyond its reach.
What Kildare's success this year tells us isn't on the face of it particularly heart-warming for Leinster. With Meath surprisingly ousted, the province doesn't appear to have a team capable of competing at the highest level. It makes a good comparison with Munster's hurling championship - both are the most competitive provincial competitions but whose winners have been found wanting.
Yet that is a better state of affairs than Leinster hurling finds itself despite the certainty of the All-Ireland returning to the province. Offaly's ability to raise their game when a match is for keeps is no substitute for a genuinely competitive championship - such as football has enjoyed. And Kildare have more than played their role in that.
For the first time in years, the football championship has captured the public interest to a greater extent than the hurling. This year's All-Ireland semi-finals have greatly contributed to that level of interest.
For the first time in a long time, all four provincial champions were accorded general equality when prospects for the All-Ireland were being assessed. (Three years ago I tipped every team except Kerry in the All-Ireland series and - inevitably - they won. But this was not a widely shared view of the prospects of Cavan, Offaly or Mayo.)
More appetisingly, the prospect of a Kerry-Galway final brings into focus a final between two teams who compensate for flawed defences with attacking flair. Even Armagh are an improved product on last year. Their tactics may be negative but they would bring novelty and pose an interesting test for Galway.
And anyway, if we accept that a team is entitled to play to its strengths, we'll make the best of whatever the weekend throws up.
