SIDELINE CUT:THIS YEAR'S All-Ireland football championship has given rise to the argument that much of the prevailing theory and coaching is, as Anthony Hopkins might put it, hokey.

On last weekend’s evidence, a top tier is developing in Gaelic football, with Tyrone, Kerry and (possibly) Cork now operating at a different level than the other “strong” counties.

The comprehensive nature of Cork’s win over Donegal and Kerry’s deconstruction of Dublin suggested the Munster teams are playing an entirely different game. But does anyone believe Kerry are worth 17 points over Dublin? Or that Cork are 16 points ahead of Donegal? It simply isn’t the case. Yet they achieved victories of that magnitude at the crucial stage of the football season.

Cork must be the biggest team in the history of Gaelic football. As they kicked points for fun against the bedraggled Donegal team, it became almost comical to see the Cork team getting even bigger with every substitute that went in while the Donegal team seemed to shrink. Conor Counihan seems to have trawled the county for big, fast athletes and he has assembled a formidably – a frighteningly – powerful team.

It is easy in hindsight to blame the Donegal tactics for the scoring deluge that Cork inflicted upon them. They set out their stall as they had done in the brave victories against Derry and Galway and nobody was critical then. Nobody predicted that withdrawing the half-forwards would lead to annihilation.

But the dilemma Donegal found themselves in raises a question relevant to Gaelic football in general. Why can’t teams switch systems during a game? Why can’t they change to a man-to-man marking system with a simple call or code? Why not ensure that every player knows who he is marking and has studied his opponent’s form – whether he likes to turn inside or out to shoot, how he fakes, how he passes, what his blind spots are, etc.

It was clear switching to a straight up one-on-one man marking system across the pitch was the only hope Donegal had of altering the pattern of that match.

But it was equally clear that on this given Sunday, they were too tired to do so. Paul Kerrigan’s delightful goal was the proof of that particular pudding. On any other day, Barry Dunnion, an absolute flier of a wing back, would have mown Jimmy’s cub up when it came to an out and out sprint.

Mickey Harte will study Cork’s performance against Donegal with keen interest. After all, the Tyrone lads aren’t exactly the Detroit Pistons when it comes to height and brawn. Like Donegal, they could struggle for supremacy in the air. Like Donegal, they could be vulnerable to the sheer power and speed of the Cork running game. The precision – and imagination – of the Tyrone kick-out could have a big bearing on the game’s outcome.

But it remains to be seen how Cork will cope against an attacking game predicated on simple, accurate passing and purposeful, clever running into space, a game which Tyrone have mastered. And handsome as the final scoreline was for Cork, it cannot disguise the fact Michael Murphy caused utter mayhem in around the Cork goal.

Kerry’s howling return to form is also interesting. Nobody can doubt that much of what happened on the pitch last Monday can be traced to the minds of the Dublin men. The trip-switch went when the Kerrymen appeared on the field: old doubts and fears that predated Pat Gilroy’s time returned to haunt them. And Kerry were primed to take advantage. But Michael McCarthy’s rampant form surely places the entire training philosophy prevalent in Gaelic games in a dubious light.

McCarthy has returned to the Kerry team after a three-year retirement, was one of the outstanding performers on the field and looked completely fresh at the end of it.

Perhaps it will prove that the tilted nature of the match meant he had plenty of time to stand around and get his puff. And perhaps he is an exceptional athlete who looked after himself during his time away. But he is almost 30 and just waltzed back into the elite level. Similarly, Darragh Ó Sé, after a winter hiatus, has returned to top-level action at the age of 34 and was highly impressive the last day.

Four years ago, Brian McGuigan (who is arguably still the game’s most original genius) bummed around Australia for half a year, returned to the Tyrone squad in June and ran the show in that year’s All-Ireland final.

Donegal’s Karl Lacey also toured the Outback for most of the year and since coming home has proven one of the best defenders in the country. So it begs the question: is the slog and training and running and time that football teams put in really necessary?

GAA culture has always been reactive. In the past 10 years, managers have been obsessed with the idea that their teams should appear professional. Hence the tackle-bag warm-ups, the ice baths and freezing chambers, the weights programmes and most of all the mantra that “these guys are like professional athletes now”.

But often you watch teams going through the warm-up drills and wonder if they truly know why they are doing this. To what end?

You wonder, knowing that their wides tally will soon add up, if they wouldn’t be better at least incorporating some shooting drills into their warm-up. And the game is crammed full of defenders who can lift the equivalent of a baby elephant on the bench press but who still commit the cardinal errors on the field – of diving in instead of patiently waiting until the attacker makes the first move, of ball watching, of losing sight of their man, of not exposing their weaknesses. And all players, even the supreme exponents like Seán Cavanagh or Colm Cooper have weaknesses.

It was interesting to see several revelations from the Kerry camp about how they targeted certain perceived pressure-points in the Dublin team. The observations cannot have made Pat Gilroy feel any better about life and perhaps that was half the intention. No information of consequence emanates from the Kerry camp without good reason.

Demoralised by what happened on the field, hearing about how it was achieved from Kerry sources just gives the Dubs further food for thought as they try to regroup from a shattering experience and think about the fact that they may meet Kerry again next summer.

Jack O’Connor was entitled to feel vindicated after last Monday’s performance.

But the brilliance of his team on Monday does not negate the fact they were genuinely on skid row a few weeks back: that Sligo had the chances to kill them off and there was nothing they could do about it. But the best teams invariably find a way to survive and the serious stages of the All-Ireland season would not be the same without Kerry’s involvement. Meath or Mayo, durable counties both, have all but been forgotten about as the football championship is reduced to the final four. And that will suit them just fine.

But in the bigger picture, other serious teams will not prevail until they wipe the slate clean and start to run with their own ideas – as Kildare did under Kieran McGeeney this year. Tyrone or Kerry or Cork are not invincible but one of their great weapons is they often appear so. Thinking their way through that illusion is the big task for all managers to consider as they watch the fireworks in the Sundays to come.