The GAA public's early-season appetite for football was illustrated by the large attendances that flocked to most of the weekend's first-round Allianz League matches.

Those who paid through the stiles got more than fresh-air for their investment because there was plenty of drama and high-scoring around the grounds.

Here are some of the main talking points from Round 1 of the Allianz Football League.

The Dublin footballers are box-office

Cavan town was buzzing for the visit of League and All-Ireland champions as a crowd of 16,331 packed into Kingspan Breffni Park for the Allianz Division One clash between Cavan and Dublin.

The home supporters were always going to turn out in big numbers for their team’s first Division 1 match in 13 years, and the fact that Dublin were the opposition only served to heighten the sense of occasion.

Jim Gavin’s team brought thousands of their own supporters with them, many of them delayed by the bottle-neck town of Virginia which meant the throw-in had to be put back 15 minutes.

Dublin football teams have always brought a special sort of glamour with them whenever they’ve travelled for away matches, but never more so than now because of all they’ve achieved in recent years and the style they’ve achieved it in.

Sunday’s win over Cavan extended Dublin’s unbeaten run in the League and Championship to 30 games, a remarkable achievement that further reinforces their status as one of the greatest teams of all time.

Every other team in Division One would love to be the one that ends that unbroken sequence, which will only add to that sense of box-office when Dublin travel to Donegal, Kerry, and Monaghan later in the campaign.

Gary Brennan is a horse of a man

Gary Brennan proved once again he’s a special sportsman by turning in an epic weekend for club and county.

On Saturday he was a key man for Ballyea as he played all of their AIB All-Ireland Club SHC semi-final victory over St. Thomas’ of Galway.

That was a seriously intense game of hurling that went down to the wire thanks to an epic St. Thomas’ comeback, but despite the mentally and physically draining nature of the contest Brennan still somehow managed to also play all of Clare’s Allianz NFL Division match against Derry less than 24 hours later.

The 2016 Football All-Star nominee was one of Clare’s best players too as they earned a very creditable draw at Celtic Park.

He started the move that led to the game’s only goal, and played a part in many more of Clare’s scoring forays. It was a remarkable effort, but the ever humble Brennan played down the achievement after the match.

“I really wasn’t involved as I would have wanted to be on Saturday – I felt I wasn’t up to the pitch and the intensity of the game,” Brennan told RTE Sport after the draw with Derry.

“I felt good coming in today, there were no excuses, and it doesn’t feel so great now – it feels like a loss, actually. We had gotten ourselves into a good winning position and let it slip again.

“A lot of teams have come to Derry and gotten nothing so we’re going back down the road with a point so we’ll take that and get ready for Down next weekend.

Kerry's young-guns are made of the right stuff

Kerry have won the last three All-Ireland minor titles in a row, so it was only a matter of time before that conveyor belt of talent started to produce senior inter-county footballers of the highest calibre.

Brian Ó Beaglaoich made his senior debut last year and remains a very encouraging work in progress, and this year it looks like many more fresh faces will start to appear in the Kerry senior team on a regular basis.

Tom O’Sullivan, Jack Savage, and Jason Foley all started Sunday’s Allianz League Division 1 victory over Donegal and impressed.

O’Sullivan, in particular, looks like a class-act. He’s a very attack-minded half-back who glides effortlessly across the ground and always seems to have time and space on the ball.

He plays with his head up, takes the right option on most occasions, and knows where the posts are too as the quality point he scored against Donegal proved.

Savage is a livewire inside forward who could bring a new dimension to the Kerry attack this year. As well as being sharp in open play, he’s also an accurate free-taker.

Foley is a physically commanding, no-nonsense defender, and looks a likely candidate to be Kerry’s number three for years to come.

There are many more up and coming Kerry players jostling in the queue for first-team promotion behind O’Sullivan, Savage, and Foley, so it looks like there are exciting days ahead for the Kingdom.

The Tipperary footballers deserve better support

The Tipperary footballers were one of stories of the 2016 Championship as they reached the All-Ireland semi-final against all expectations.

By the time they played that match against Mayo it looked like they were being given due recognition by their own supporters who turned up in big numbers for the All-Ireland semi-final.

It seems like that was a false dawn though because the official attendance for their Allianz League Division Three opener against Antrim on Sunday was a pretty miserable 722.

Tipperary’s first love as a sporting county will always be hurling, but you would have expected that the footballer’s achievements last year might have increased their market-share.

As the Tipp players proved once again by getting their League campaign off to a winning start, they’re a team worth supporting.

Andy McEntee has a big job on his hands

Andy McEntee’s appointment as Meath manager was greeted enthusiastically by Royal County loyalists because of his pedigree at club level where he won an All-Ireland title with Ballyboden St. Enda’s in 2016.

If there was ever any doubt though that waking the sleeping giant that is Meath football was always going to be a difficult task, it was dispelled by the nature of their opening round Allianz Division 2 clash with Kildare on Sunday.

They were comprehensively beaten by 10 points, and coming quickly on the heels of another heavy home defeat to Louth in the O’Byrne Cup it made for a fairly glum atmosphere in Pairc Tailteann.

Just like against Louth, Meath were way off the pace in terms of their general intensity and their defending was extremely naïve at times. Those two areas will have to be addressed if they’re to challenge for promotion from Division Two this year.

Louth are building nicely

An encouraging O’Byrne Cup campaign ended disappointingly for Louth when they were beaten in the Final by Dublin, but it’s clear that loss hasn’t dismayed them too much.

They were excellent on Saturday when they cut Laois to pieces on the way to a 2-16 to 0-10 victory. Considering the match was played in O’Moore Park and that Laois were a Division Two team last year, the scale of the victory really sends out a message.

Having won the Allianz Football League Division 4 Final last year, Colin Kelly’s team are clearly a team on an upward curve.

They play a lovely brand of attacking football that makes the most of their natural pace and skill. If they can maintain the level of performance they produced on Saturday, they’ll be in with a great shout of making it back to back promotions.

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