LET'S hope we get back to normality from next week on and that the national media will be focussing on the games of football and hurling for all the right reasons.

I'm not going to go over the unsavoury scenes in Portlaoise recently as enough has been said about it. Suffice it to say the solution to that behaviour lies with Croke Park, so over to headquarters on that issue! I hope that on the start of the new season of Gaelic games that thatthe focus will be on the playing of the game in the right spirit and there is no reason why that should not be so.

So, to the football. There is a great double header in store as the opening shots of the National Football League are set to be fired in Croke Park on Saturday night. Tyrone will play Kildare in the opener and then the repeat of last year's All-ireland Final between Dublin and Kerry will ensure a large crowd in Croke Park.

A lot of interest will focus on these encounters as four of the top teams in the country will want to hit the ground running. The National League is important for all counties for financial reasons, but it is especially so for the top counties, and that includes the four teams playing in Croke Park on Saturday. It is important that a good run in the League takes a team to the final stages of the competition, thereby shortening the lead into the Championship, and giving a team an extra one or two competitive matches in April.

For the second year running Tyrone are playing Division 2 football and Mickey Harte will surely have to use the spring campaign to find replacements for some of their more experienced players who have recently retired. Kildare, on the other hand, who in lots of people's minds were the unluckiest team of last year, will be trying to unearth a forward or two that might make all the difference to their overall challenge this year.

However, the showpiece in Croke Park on Saturday – and, indeed, the plum tie of the first weekend – is most definitely the Dublin versus Kerry encounter. Kerry and Dublin always peaks the interest whenever they meet but last September's All-ireland final adds greater intrigue and spice to this latest instalment.

It goes without saying that neither team will want to lose this game, not least for the two points on offer but also because of that All-ireland Final. Kerry, no matter what anyone says, will want to avenge that loss, while Dublin will want to put together rare back-to-back wins over Kerry.

Both team will be missing a number of players on Saturday but this is a Dublin and Kerry encounter and they always produce good games. From a Kerry perspective we will want to establish a panel of players that, come Championship time, we would be comfortable in starting or introducing as a game progresses. I don't believe that we have been in that position for a while.

Regardless that many people believe we left last year's All-ireland behind us, the way Kerry started and lined out in that final, and the tactical and personnel changes made during it, suggests a couple of things to me. Either the management had no confidence in the team ot they had underestimated Dublin. Or maybe there was another agenda at work altogether? People can make their own minds up about that. It's water under the bridge now anyway and looking back Though not strictly speaking one of Kerry's young, up and coming players in the squad, Sean Counihan wonders if Daniel Bohan, pictured here marking Dublin's Diarmuid Connolly, could be considered a realistic option at full back, and be given a sustained chance there during the National League