Jack O'Connorfeels that the Dubs should concentrate on adding a bit more pattern and method to their game

This weekend brings the Dubs back to championship action for the first time since their big blow-up against Mayo last year. They've had nine months to think about a slip-up of Devon Loch proportions. It will be interesting to see what they have learned.

Their pattern of fade outs is too steady to be pure coincidence. Back in February 2004 in my third league match with Kerry we played the Dubs in Parnell Park. They blew us away in the first 20 minutes. Things looked so bad for us that on the one occasion I ventured up the sideline from the dugout some Dub roared behind me, Bring Back Paw-dee.

We reeled them in the second half though. I noticed that Dublin players who had been flying early on just vanished before the end. Later in the year in the All-Ireland quarter-final they threw in the towel after a Dara Cinnéide goal.

They lost big leads in the league this year to Tyrone and Mayo. And in the 2005 quarter-final they lost a five-point lead to Tyrone, they lost leads to Armagh and Westmeath back in '04, Armagh again in '02.

There is a pattern, but is there an explanation? I think there are a couple of fundamental problems. Dublin's policy is to try to steamroll teams from the start attacking from every sector, backs, midfielders, etc. Their forwards run like lunatics all over the pitch. They constantly rotate as in volleyball so that fellas who are fleadhed from running out the field get a breather inside.

An example of this rotation gone mad came last year in the semi-final when Ray Cosgrove went from wing forward to corner forward and carried Peadar Gardiner with him. Gardiner didn't like being in alien territory. Cosgrove kicked two points from the corner. Five minutes later Cosgrove was landed out at wing forward again. That sort of stuff. Rotating for the sake of it.

At the end of the day they have no discernible pattern or shape. Can anybody reel off the Dublin forward line or the positions they play in? Alan Brogan and Conal Keaney are as good as you'll find but can you name the positions they play in?

The teams who win All-Irelands down the years always have a settled look about their forward line especially the inside line. Doyle-Keaveney-McCarthy. That hardly ever changed. Sheehy-Bomber-Egan was set in stone. Dubs will remember O'Rourke-Stafford-Flynn.

You can move backs to do marking jobs, but forwards thrive on familiarity with a position and with each other. Look at the other partnerships of recent years. They were telepathic. Clarke and McDonnell. Mulligan and Canavan. Even Gooch and Donaghy. I don't want to labour this, but the importance of settled forwards cannot be overstated.

There is only so long too you can keep up the frenetic pace. It upsets the opposition for a while, but pattern and method are more important. It's Foreman versus Ali, the Rumble in the Jungle. Look at Armagh. They don't go at one hundred miles per hour. They play to a discernible pattern all through. They control the tempo. Therefore they always have a chance.

And for the Dubs the Blue Army is a double-edged sword. They have chosen to feed off it by marching to the Hill before games. Almost officially they are saying, we are empowered by the Hill! It is as if the atmosphere drives the Dubs to such a frenzy that they start games like the horse bolting from the stall, running as hard as he can for as long as he can. The horse has nothing left in the final furlong where races are won and lost.

The crowd are fine when the team is fine. They feed off each other. When the team go into a lull the crowd go quiet. The Dubs appear to get disheartened. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. For the last 10 minutes against Mayo last year you could hear a pin drop on the Hill.

The need to please the crowd is dangerous. Top teams are made up of a fair proportion of lads who do unheralded donkey work. Unseen stuff. How many of these do Dublin have? A Brian Dooher? A Paul Galvin? A Martin O'Rourke? Scavengers around the middle third? Dublin have too many players trying to please the Blue Army. It is amazing what you can achieve if nobody cares who gets the credit.

The Dubs need to steady up and play a more measured and methodical game. Psychologically the Dubs are vulnerable this week and nobody are better than Meath to exploit that. Colm Coyle will be telling his men to hang on to Dublin's coat tails till the last 10 minutes. Then we'll see what they are made of.

If Dublin can win a tight game on Sunday they might be a serious proposition. To win a game coming from behind in the last 10 minutes would do more good than all the shrinks in the country. This is a great test as Meath have patented the come-from-behind win down through the years. I was in Croke Park in 1996 when Coyle himself kicked a holy mary from his own half-back line that hopped over the bar to give Meath a second chance against Mayo in the All-Ireland final.

Pillar will be asking his men this week, have you got the carraigs to battle to the wire when it is going against you. Where are the leaders. Look to Fermanagh and Tyrone two weeks ago. Who wins the break when the game is on the line. Seán Cavanagh caught the final kick-out. Tyrone manufactured a score. Can Dublin do that?

The GAA needs the Dubs. They play exciting, attacking football. They are the only side who come near to filling Croke Park. Winning Sam would capture the hearts and minds of the myriad of young Dubs who could be lost to soccer and other less stressful past-times.

The key is to get the balance right on the field.

Agus Rud Eile . . .

In a strange way the result from Ballybofey on Sunday could be a positive for both teams.

Armagh don't need another Ulster championship. In fact, Stephen McDonnell has admitted he knows well where his Celtic Cross is, but he isn't too sure about the Ulster medals. They can take a lot of heart from Sunday.

By any objective analysis they were the better team. They have a system which means they will be hard to beat. When Ronan Clarke and Brian Mallon come back they will be a handful for anyone.

For Donegal the result was everything. They were fortuitous, but they stuck with it in the face of Armagh's relentless tackling. They need to settle their forward line, though, and getting Brendan Devenney back is crucial to them.

They tried to run the ball through Armagh on Sunday and that was playing into their hands or in most cases their bodies. Armagh have so much gym work done they are going around looking for fellas to bounce off. Why give them the opportunity? To beat Armagh you have to kick the ball.

And when you do you have to have fellas inside who show over and back relentlessly for that ball. That's the key. The irony is that on one of the few times they kicked the ball in Donegal got the vital goal.

When Armagh sit down to think of it this week they will wonder what was the big deal about coming through the battlefield of Ulster anyway. They have a few injuries. They've six weeks to the qualifiers.

They can work under the radar. Get men back. It will work well. The nearest they came to getting their second All-Ireland was being beaten in Ulster by Monaghan in 2003.

Winning an All-Ireland is about coming good at the right time. It's a long year. You want to time your form for quarter-final time onwards. A nice draw in the first round of the qualifiers and Armagh will be serious.

People forget that last year against Kerry they played great football and we only put them away for good when we got a breakaway goal from Darren O'Sullivan. Anyone who thinks that Armagh are gone away are mistaken. The question that Armagh's situation creates is with a championship only starting at the quarter-final stage is it worth winning a provincial championship anymore?

I would guess within five years we will have a different championship format, something along Champions League lines. I know the GAA hate copying other codes, but if it makes the product more attractive and exciting to hell with the begrudgers.