By Denis Bastick

Dublin’s dismantling of Tyrone in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final was the stand out performance of the football championship. It was also the culmination of three years of hard work and preparation.

As we face into a packed weekend of 11 major football championship games, including three provincial finals, it puts tactics and a team’s ability to adapt centre stage again.

In an ideal world every match in the championship would be like Dublin v Kerry in the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final. It was a roller coaster ride of epic proportions. Blink and you’d miss a big moment or a big score.

Dublin and Kerry backed themselves that day to go out and play front foot attacking football. It was a day for the gunslingers. Kerry would unload on Dublin and we’d hit straight back.

In the end our firepower told and we came out 3-18 to 3-11 winners in a great game of football.

There’s something pure about 15 on 15 football, almost macho. Let’s go at it and see who comes out on top.

Go back 10 years or more and a 15 v 15 game was still very position based, played up through the lines and you held your position. The only 15 v 15 certainty these days is probably Dublin v Mayo where the two teams go toe to toe and really go for it. But even then it is a different sort of game in that positions don’t hold and you can have Keith Higgins or Philly McMahon kicking points having come up from the full back lines.

Dublin’s 2014 All-Ireland semi-final defeat by Donegal was a turning point for the team and its development.

Donegal to their credit had a plan to try and disrupt us by interchanging players in and out of midfield and it worked often enough for them to get the crucial goals that swung the game.

A lot of soul searching was done in the weeks immediately after the defeat in the Dublin camp and we set about trying to devise a way to ensure that this would not happen to us again.

Dublin are unbeaten in the championship since that Donegal match.

Jim Gavin isn’t just trotting out soundbites when he talks about Dublin wanting to stay true to our traditional values of attacking free flowing football - it is something that is a core principal. But the team works hard to ensure that for all the attacking we are not easily opened at the back.

It is part of that constant evolution.

Pat Gilroy’s Dublin teams of 2009 and 2010 weren’t good enough to get over the line – harsh defensive lessons needed to be learned before we got the job done in 2011.

Everything requires tweaking. What you did last year is never going to be good enough this year. Dublin have won three Sam Maguires in a row but I know that they will have been working hard all spring on adding new elements to their game to improve and become even more resilient.

The difference between the big contenders for the All-Ireland and the other challengers is that to be serious about a tilt at Sam Maguire having one game plan is not going to be good enough.

No plan is unstoppable. So, if you are a one trick pony and you come up against a better team on a given day what do you do?

You’ve got to have players who are comfortable in more than one style of play. They need to be skillful and confident players who are at ease on the ball. That takes time to develop.

A few years ago, if you told a group of players that they had to try and hold onto the ball for three or four minutes they would panic. But it is a key part of a team’s make up now.

Laois impressed me in this regard against Carlow in the Leinster semi-final. Carlow, even when they were behind, still had men back in numbers. Laois showed impressive composure to retain possession, play it around and wait for the best option and opportunity to present itself.

It might not always be easy on the eye but why should they kick away possession unless they are 100 per cent sure of retaining it?

Even when the match was going away from them, Carlow stayed in their formation. Tyrone did so against Dublin last year too. Adaptability is going to be key in this year’s championship.

History is always written by the winners. Galway won a lot of praise for backing themselves and their system last week in the Connacht final. But if Roscommon had won that match would Galway have been criticised for not changing their approach?

On the back of that chastening 2014 defeat Dublin have worked hard to ensure that if they are ever presented with an ultra-defensive approach again that the team will have answers to the questions it asks of you.

I was involved in the infamous 2011 semi-final with Donegal. One of the strangest games ever where Donegal unveiled their ultra-defensive approach and we just about got past them by two points 0-8 to 0-6.

What Donegal didn’t bank on that day was Kevin McManamon and his hard running and ability to punch holes through the cover.

This remains a serious flaw in the ultra-defensive blanket. Once you flood players back the common mistake is for players to believe there is safety in numbers.

But you still have to defend, you have to be a good tackler. Forwards tend not to be strong defensively and tend not to be as good at tackling. Flooding players back can leave you vulnerable if the opposition get the right player on the ball and attacking someone who can’t stop their path. You break the first line and gaps open up.

Donegal tweaked their 2011 system and won the Sam Maguire the following year. They have developed further and it has been interesting to see them this year. They are a far cry from that 2011 approach and with a player as in form as Paddy McBrearty why wouldn’t they be more attack minded. Getting quick ball to him in space makes a lot more sense than slowly hand passing the ball up the field.

Rory Gallagher knows the Donegal players so well from his time there that it will have to help Fermanagh – but they will almost certainly be rooted in their defensive approach and try and thwart and shut down Donegal.

You have to think that Donegal – just like Dublin against Laois – will have too much fire power and scoring options for the opposition defence who face an exhausting afternoon of chasing and covering.

Kerry have an abundance of exciting young football riches. But Eamonn Fitzmaurice is careful to try and balance this flair with a tough exterior at the back which is hard to break down.

I expect Mayo to kick on in their qualifier outing with Tipp and likewise Tyrone against Carlow – but they will do so by being able to mix and match their approach. Tyrone look to have evolved from 2017 and Mickey Harte is around long enough to know that nothing can stand still.

A few years ago, the third midfielder was the big evolution in Gaelic football. The game has come a long way and is still evolving.

Having studied it and played against it so much, I can say that I have a lot of respect for teams that invest heavily in defensive football. Defending like attacking is an art and there is much to be admired when it is done well.

Who are we to decide what is and isn’t the right way to play football?

Teams play with the players they have and sometimes that means a conservative approach. It will bring success – but only to a point.

The big contenders for Sam Maguire are teams like Dublin, Mayo, Kerry and Galway – teams renowned for serious attacking talent rather than their ability to park the bus. Surely no coincidence?

The GAA has, in the past, looked at ways of helping the football evolution along and they should consider doing so again.

The mark is great for high fielding. I’d like to see a limit on the hand pass to force teams to kick it more often. It’s called football after all, but the ratio of hand pass to foot pass is all wrong.

If everyone played the same way it would be boring. Rest assured the style of play will be the talking point come Sunday evening.

Enjoy!