GAA: What novelty. A winter carnival day at Croke Park. The Dublin hurlers made a rare and winning appearance on the sacred turf and then the All-Ireland champions were applauded on to the field by the Dublin footballers who didn't let the hospitality end there. They gave Armagh two easy league points to take home in a doggie bag. A total of 54,432 people watched. Yes, that's right, 54,432.

When Dublin and Armagh met on the first day of September last year there was something inescapably appealing about the confidence and swagger of both sides. They liked the stage, they used the pitch, they played like they felt they belonged there. They played like two teams who knew that they were the story of the summer. Fitting then, that they should have been there again yesterday when the curtain went up on spring.

As it turned out the matinee was no cliffhanger. Armagh shouldn't have been ready for this but they were. Dublin should have been prepared but they weren't. It would be hard to sell so many tickets for a sequel.

Neither side was quite at full strength but Dublin started nearer to being what they want to be and finished further away. Manager Tommy Lyons has said that he feels he needs three new players. That was on last year's form though. Yesterday's side was deficient in new areas.

"Maybe we got too many fine days last summer," he said thoughtfully, "perhaps we learned as much out there today as we did last summer."

Indeed it was a sharp wake-up call for the Leinster champions. Armagh didn't just win this game, they bossed it, controlled it, toyed with it. For a team who still have sand between their toes after their holidays and still have glitter in their hair from prolonged celebrations, it was an exhibition of all that they have become. Tough and shrewd and indomitable. They just looked like a bigger species. When they had the ball they used it, when they wanted it back they went and got it. Indeed by almost all the indices by which work-rate and strength are measured in Gaelic football Armagh came out on top.

Dublin gave try-outs to a couple of new faces. Brian Cullen had the misfortune to be paired with Kieran McGeeney, who has neither off-days nor sympathy for students of the game. McGeeney was the deep end into which Cullen was thrown. He emerged with a point and had some late influence on the game. Could have been much worse.

Tomás Quinn, another newcomer, hadn't got things much easier shuttling between the two corners but he scored two good points from play, did enough good things to suggest that come the summer and firmer turf he will be a threat. If he can get his rhythm going with the dead balls he can secure a jersey for himself.

Armagh, too, were fussing around with their line-out, looking for a few young tyros with which to keep older stars on their toes. Benny Tierney's ample jersey was filled by Paul Hearty of Tyrone and David Turley and Pádraig Duffy were both given run-outs as substitutes. Manager Joe Kernan intends to blood more players in the coming weeks as he looks ahead to a stern league schedule.

Of the two managers it was Lyons who had the most clearly defined tasks to occupy his mind in the coming days. Where do you start the mending when you are publicly overrun by a side just back from the beach? Only Lyons knows how much of yesterday's anaemic Dublin performance was down to the team being hobbled by heavy training in the last week or two.

Certainly it would be a surprise if they are as easily dispossessed of the ball come summer. A surprise and the end of the great caravan of blueness which moved merrily through the summer and seems ready to roll again. Second time around, perhaps, it's more daunting.

"I'd be a lot happier back in Parnell Park," joked Lyons afterwards when asked about the size of yesterday's crowd. "It's a lot easier with only 9,000 looking at you, 35,000 less calling for your head!"

Kernan was just as relaxed but then he has less work to be doing. He needs to keep Armagh doing the right things. Apart from that he knows he has the components of a great side.

"We're happy enough with the performance," he said, declining to insult the gathered intelligentsia with the standard GAA manager prattle about having scored 15 lucky points. "Everyone knows we were wondering what way we'd come out what with the partying and the socialising and this being only the second of February.

"We can't get carried away. You're always surprised when these games are over. We're happy with certain things we done. When I look at the video I'll see plenty of mistakes along with that. For players to come back from four or five months off, their attitude and work rate impressed me. We won a lot of ball after losing it."

While Dublin and Armagh drew the crowd of the weekend, just as novel was the experiment in Páirc Uí Rinn in Cork on Saturday night when Cork and Kerry played their opening league fixture under floodlights. The game attracted over 13,000 and as a precautionary measure to make sure patrons were satisfied there were five goals, three sendings- off and lots of simpatico smiles between Páidí Ó Sé and John O'Keeffe.

Who knows, maybe this grey weekend in February will some day be looked upon as a watershed in GAA history.