By John Harrington

The return of the Allianz Football League was greeted by huge crowds nationwide, and, by the time the dust had settled, there were no shortage of talking points to dissect and debate. Here are five of them.

Stephen O’Hanlon makes a name for himself

As Allianz Football League debuts go, Stephen O’Hanlon’s was pretty spectacular.

With his first two touches after coming on as a sub for Monaghan against Dublin yesterday the Carrickmacross club-man scored a goal and assisted another to turn the match completely on its head.

There was a real touch of class about his involvement in both scores.

The soaring fetch, scorching run, and classy finish made his goal the score of the weekend, and he showed sound judgement, good vision, and soft hands to give Shane Carey a simple fisted tap-in for Monaghan’s second goal shortly afterwards.

In Monaghan they’ve known that O’Hanlon is a serious talent for a long time, but until this year he had refused repeated requests to join up with the inter-county panel.

That’s because he’s also a very accomplished basketballer – a former U-20 international – and that was the sport he chose to focus on until Malachy O’Rourke came calling again at the end of last year.

It’s very early days yet for O’Hanlon as an inter-county footballer, but he looks like he has all the tools in his locker to make a serious impact this year.

You can see his basketball pedigree in his ball handling and spatial awareness, and, as he showcased with his goal, he has both serious pace and a finisher’s instincts.

He scored 2-11, 1-7 of it from play, for Carrickmacross in last year’s Monaghan U-21 Final. We could soon get used to the sight of him racking up big scores at inter-county level too.

For too long Monaghan have been reliant on Conor McManus to do the bulk of the team's scoring. If O’Hanlon proves to be a natural foil for their talisman in the full-forward line, then Monaghan’s attacking play may well have a new dimension.

New rules make a positive impact

It’s early days yet, but it looks like the experimental playing rules for the Allianz Football League are already having a positive impact.

Certainly, Monaghan showed against Dublin that the attacking mark can be a very useful offensive weapon.

Conor McManus scored two marks after his introduction and proved that if you have a ball-winning inside forward like him in your team then it pays to get your head up and send kick-passes from outside the ’45 his way.

And if you have classy footballers in your team like Jack McCarron who are capable of kicking the ball long and accurately, then it’s a no-brainer.

Not only will the attacking mark rule encourage more teams to kick long, it will also force teams to reconsider the wisdom of screening tactics in defence.

Teams that like to defend in numbers are often happy for their inside backs to play it safe by staying goal-side of his man even if that means he wins clean possession because they can then simply force him to turn back out the field.

But now if they allow him to catch the ball cleanly he’ll have an uncontested shot at the posts.

Defenders will now have to compete more aggressively for the ball which, in turn, could pull defences out of shape and lead to more goal-scoring opportunities as attackers win possession in situations where it’s easier to turn their marker and go for goal.

And where once in these sort of situations defenders might have been tempted to pull down attackers and take a black card for the team safe in the knowledge a sub would simply replace him, now the sin-bin rule means such cynical fouling will leave your team with a numerical disadvantage.

The early signs are positive too for the kick-out from the 20-metre line and the rule that sideline kicks must go forward.

Both have resulted in more contests for possession and are making the game less structured by making it more difficult to set in motion the sort of sideways and backwards hand-passing chains that are such a blight on the game.

New-look Kerry show a meaner edge in defence

Kieran Donaghy said in a recent interview that the priority for Kerry this year should be to become more durable in the defence because they would always have enough firepower in attack to go toe to toe with anyone.

He surely enjoyed their opening round victory over Tyrone yesterday then because there were signs that new manager Peter Keane has already made some progress in plugging a defence that leaked alarmingly at times last year.

In their 2018 League campaign Kerry conceded ten goals in seven games – the most of any team in the top flight – so to restrict Tyrone to just seven points, just two of which were from play, looked like progress.

Kerry’s new-look defensive sextet was solid, but it was the overall attitude of the team without possession that impressed most.

They hassled and harried Tyrone ball-carriers with real tenacity, and the sight of a Tyrone man being turned over became a very common one.

This young Kerry team might still be a work in progress, but this was a very satisfactory start to Peter Keane’s reign.

Brian Reape catches the eye for Mayo

The atrocious weather that made playing conditions next to impossible for both Mayo and Roscommon in Saturday night’s Allianz Football League clash means drawing any definitive conclusions from the match would be unwise.

Mayo fans will have nevertheless enjoyed the brilliant goal from Brian Reape that ultimately decided the contest in their favour.

You could argue he overcarried the ball, but he was given the benefit of the doubt because he was probably being fouled while he carried it towards goal.

There’s no disputing the quality of the finish, though, as he blasted the ball to the roof of the net.

Reape is big, strong, very direct and has now scored 2-4 from play since coming into the Mayo team this year.

"He's thinking goal when he gets the ball," said Mayo manager James Horan after the match.

That attitude and the skill-set he has to complement it means Reape could potentially bring something new to the Mayo attack this year.

Ross Munnelly continues to lead by example

Ross Munnelly has been a brilliant servant to Laois football for a long time.

He’s just turned 36 and is now in his 17th season, but showed on Saturday night that his appetite for the game and professional approach to it both remain undiminished.

Munnelly was an unused sub for Laois’ victory away to Down, and after the match he was spotted going through a series of running drills on his own in the driving rain.

It’s that sort of dedication to the cause as well as his ability that still makes him such an important member of the Laois panel.