The 2015 League campaign has generated more gnashing of teeth than any other campaign in living memory. The head of the Football Review Committee proclaimed the death of football after watching one famously traumatic encounter.
There is an alternative theory (peddled by hurling snobs and soccer loving cosmopolitans) that Gaelic football was never that good in the first place and that it has only ever been intermittently good.
Rob Carroll of Gaelic Stats has already down a great deal to dismiss the notion that Gaelic football is in flight from a glorious past.
Here are six examples from Gaelic football's largely forgotten, inglorious past.
1. Cork 0 - 11 Meath 0 - 9, All-Ireland final 1990
The late 80s are a divisive period in the sport. Fans who like the sight of cute Kerry forwards kicking stylish points think it was a hellish time. Lads who love physical confrontation and get a thrill out of seeing brawls believed the sport was never in ruder health.
The Cork-Meath final of 1990 was a dour, sour, nasty affair. Its greatest contribution to posterity is the sight of Mick Lyons taking a box in the mouth and carrying on regardless.
2. Kerry 1 - 9 Roscommon 1 - 6, All-Ireland final 1980
The golden age of football. Kerry's greatest era. When forwards could kick scores and midfielders did nothing only field the ball. Fist passing wasn't overdone like it is now. And no one dived.
Which is why Kerry were frequently accused of playing 'basketball'. And it is why Pat Spillane spent the last few minutes lying on the ground. He was unrepentant about this afterwards, insisting that the rough-housing Rossies were asking for it. Running down the clock by exaggerating an injury was a legitimate forwards revenge.
3. Mayo 1 - 5 Roscommon 0 - 7, 1993 Connacht Final
Connacht was the sick man of football in the early 1990s, and the province was never so ill as after the 1993 championship. A poor Mayo team who were in disarray behind the scenes weren't quite bad enough to avoid winning the province that year.
They trailed at half time, but rustled up 1-3 in the second half to win the title, with a goal from Ray Dempsey being the crucial score.
Dempsey also kicked one of the weirdest long range points of all time, in which Gay Sheerin decided to run away from, rather than towards the ball, letting it bounce and hop over the bar. And John Madden gets all the flak.
Their 'reward' was a trip to Croke Park to face Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final. They lost 5-15 to 0-10.
Two years later before Mayo met Galway in the provincial decider in Tuam, a Mayo supporter contacted RTE to say he hoped they'd lose because he couldn't stomach being hammered by Ulster opposition in the semi-final in Croke Park. He got his way but little did he know the days of Connacht opposition being routinely humbled in Croker were coming to an end.
4. Donegal 0 - 13 Mayo 0 - 9, 1992 All-Ireland semi-final
The match which Paddy Downey described in the Irish Times as 'the poorest ever played'. Apart from sending Donegal into their first ever All-Ireland final, its most immediate impact was to make Dublin roaring hot favourites for the championship.
The game was tied at 0-6 to 0-6 at half-time before Donegal began to dominate the midfield sector in the second half. They were indebted to the reliable free-taking of Manus Boyle. By the time they were awarded a penalty in injury time, it was a matter of tacking on an insurance point and wee Martin decided to clip the ball over the bar.
I also like to think he took the decision that this game didn't deserve a goal.
5. Dublin 1 - 10 Galway 1 - 8, 1983 All-Ireland final
GAA encyclopedias tend to include accounts of this game in their controversies and scandals section rather than in the famous matches section like most other finals.
A putrid game defaced by the conditions, Dublin ended up with 12 men on the pitch to Galway's 14. The westerners weren't able to capitalise.
Galway players from that era like to claim they'd have had a better chance if it was 15 v 15 again. Considering they had squeezed by Leitrim and Mayo in Connacht and only reached the final because it was the year Connacht were due to meet Ulster in the semi-final (a 1-point win over Donegal), the likely truth is that they'd have been beaten by a bigger score had both teams held on to their full compliment for the entire game.
The sendings off weren't the reason they lost, they were the reason they got so close to winning.
Its greatest contribution to GAA lore was allowing Micheal O'Hehir to coin the line 'Brian Mullins got his fist to that... and Brian Mullins got his fist to that too'
In the interests of the unaware, the former was the dropping ball, the latter was Brian Talty's face (it was actually an elbow).
And...
6. Tyrone 0 - 12 Armagh 0 - 9, 2003 All-Ireland final
The first death of Gaelic football. The beginning of the end.
Usually, a team's first ever All-Ireland victory is a source of celebration well beyond that county's boundary.
Tyrone's inaugural success was unique in the indifference (at best) it inspired among neutrals. In a scathing Irish Times column the following day, Tom Humphries scoffed at the notion that the victory showed the superiority of Ulster tactics.
If putting 13 men behind the ball is out-thinking the rest of us, then the man who stays in bed all day is due some sort of award for innovations in road safety.
The highlights of the day were Philip Jordan lying on the ground after he ran into Diarmuid Marsden (being ran into was a crime for which Marsden was 'shown the line') and Paul Hearty punching Eoin Mulligan in the face with a Lucozade bottle.
Listen to our podcast on the shape of Gaelic football.
[audio mp3="https://media.balls.ie/uploads/2015/04/The-Death-of-Gaelic-Football.mp3"][/audio]
