STEVEN POACHER: The two best-coached teams are in the final

WE all heard recently that ’football is dead’ and we also heard ’football is coming home’ but after last weekend it’s evident that neither proposition is true.

What a weekend for the Orangemen and what a weekend for Galway. To witness and sample the atmosphere in Croke Park at the final whistle on both days was a joy and huge evidence that there is life left in football yet.

Peter Canavan made reference to it and he is correct – an empty Croke Park does nothing for anyone. Crowds of 60,000 on Saturday and nearly 70,000 on Sunday really added to what were two phenomenal games of football played at such ferocious pace. The games were littered with everything you’d wish for – unbelievable kick-out battles, intriguing match ups, a variety of defensive shapes and systems, and the big evolution: the volume of variety in attack.

Saturday was a real classic. The Kingdom, the aristocrats of Gaelic Football, came to Croke Park and faced an Armagh team bubbling with energy, aggressive, endeavour and top class conditioning levels. But most importantly of all, Armagh are better coached.

Don’t get me wrong, when Kerry are in full flow like they were at times on Saturday, they are still unplayable, but they’re too reliant on sporadic pieces of individual brilliance.

The level of coaching and preparation that goes in now is on a different scale. Armagh had a couple of unbelievably well coached orchestrated moves that were based on Kerry being man to man.

One of them was a quarter-pitch attack, where they flooded everyone into one corner and left one man isolated on the far side.

It’s obviously high risk if turned over that high but can also be hugely advantageous, opening up pockets of space or isolating a man one v one.

Another play was clearing the middle of their attack to open up driving lanes or kicking channels. It’s really smart, innovative coaching and the best team won. I think this year Armagh have been one of two teams who have looked supremely well coached and the other is Galway.

Galway on Sunday were quite similar to Armagh. Some of their structured attacks, against a deep Donegal block, were magnificent to watch. You could almost sense the moves originating straight from the training ground – teams running unopposed patterns of attack, with players coming off cones and interchanging with others to create those little subtle pockets of space for a shot.

Defensively Galway are a monster. A really high level of defensive intensity exists among their back six and on top of that the men coming back possess such size and power. Couple that with good organization from Joyce and Divilly and you have the near perfect model.

It promises to be an unbelievable final. We have the two best teams – both teams are unbeaten in championship football (Armagh only losing a penalty shootout) and it wouldn’t be a surprise if we witnessed the ultimate drama of a first ever penalty shootout in an All-Ireland final.