THE National Football Leagues came to a close last weekend when all four finals were played out over Saturday and Sunday.

I’d firstly like to give a special mention at this point to Mickey Harte for the wonderful job he is doing for Louth GAA who secured promotion in style last weekend with a hard-fought victory over Limerick.

When he first took the job down at Louth it raised a few eyebrows but it’s clear to be seen that he still has a great deal to offer at this level. The likes of Louth may be the perfect fit for him as he aims to change things down the Wee County.

I was working last weekend in Headquarters, so I got to see the Division One and Two finals up close and personal. I must say I learned a lot about all of the teams on the day.

Let’s start with Galway and to say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. They have promised so much over the last year or two, but when it comes to the crunch they just always fail to deliver.

They have some seriously talented footballers in their ranks but when it matters most they seem to go missing and it happened again on Sunday. Paul Conroy, unlike the rest, played out of his skin and for a team now looking to cement its place in Division One next season, that simply isn’t good enough.

Conroy kept them in the game in the first half and then when Comer started to find some form, coupled with the introduction of talisman Shane Walsh, you felt that they would just push on with it, but that never materialised.

Roscommon ground them down and then a magical goal from Diarmuid Murtagh at the death was enough to win it.

There are more questions than answers now hanging over this Galway team, but Roscommon will be delighted with the back-to-back victories over the Tribesmen.

They are nicely poised for the championship clash against the winners of Sligo and New York. Roscommon themselves have some seriously talented individuals in their ranks with the Smith, Daly and Murtagh brothers, and then of course Conor Cox, so they will be a team to keep an eye on down in Connacht later in the summer.

The Division One final between heavy-hitters Mayo and Kerry failed to live up to its billing with Kerry simply too good from start to finish all over the pitch. Mayo failed to get out of the blocks and with a number of misses at critical stages during the game, it left themselves with far too much to do.

Kerry were simply awesome and at this point in time they are the standout team in the country and look as if they will be extremely difficult to beat when the championship swings around a few weeks. I will get to David Clifford in a while, but I want to give his brother Paudie a special mention. He pulled the strings during the first half which led to a number of Kerry scores and, for me, he is an extremely important component of the Kerry machine.

I believe his best position is at number 11 for Kerry, so Jack O’Connor now has a dilemma there because obviously Sean O’Shea is due to return. The question now is how you fit both of them into this Kerry forward unit.

Paudie handled some amount of ball in the first half and the dangerous thing about them is that as soon as he gets the ball he looks inside for his brother David and as a defence facing this it must be a nightmare.

David Clifford does what he wants on the big stage and he proves this again on Sunday as he turned in a Man of the Match display and simply was unplayable at times. Pádraig O’Hora tried every trick in the book to rattlehim, but I feel that this just added fuel to the fire. In my opinion, if O’Hora doesn’t mouth to Clifford then he doesn’t take him on for that goal and go for the jugular.

After the altercation with O’Hora, David Clifford wanted to show him who was boss and as soon as he got the ball he had only one thing on his mind.

The game was already over by then but Clifford wanted to send a clear message to anyone who thinks that he can be rattled or put off his game.

Jack O’Connor will be absolutely delighted with how the league has gone as he set his stall out early that he wanted to win it. Now that he has done so, they sit in a great position as a race for Sam gets underway. The problem for Kerry is that from now until the All-Ireland semi-final is they will struggle to get really competitive games such is the standard down in Munster.

For them, the biggest challenge this year will come from how they handle this situation, and making sure they are ready for the business end of the season.

For the rest of the teams in the country sitting watching on Sunday, they now know that they have a lot of work to do if they are to compete with Kerry in the summertime so I’m sure the hard work has already begun in all of these camps and we now look forward to the summer ahead.