Since the turn of the year, the state of Gaelic football has been a hot topic of discussion.

Joe Brolly hogged the attention in that regard but others, like Colm O’Rourke, have been critical too, while the likes of Mickey Harte and Kieran McGeeney have come out defending it.

There are so many aspects of the game that need to be examined, the usual suspects such as the prevalence of the handpass and lack of kicking, while the black card debate rumbles on.

But it’s the level of disconnect between the supporters and the game itself that is particularly worrying for me just now.

Hurling doesn’t seem to have the same problem - despite having a much smaller Championship it brought in more revenue for the GAA last year.

There is great value for supporters in the League, more so than there is in the early rounds of the Championship.

The last game I attended was Westmeath-Galway, as entertaining a tie as you’re likely to see. The same weekend, Monaghan-Cork and Dublin-Donegal were two pulsating games.

We still have a good game on our hands, lest we forget. A poor game of Gaelic football trumps a good game of soccer every time for me.

But the elephant in the room with regard to football at the moment is the sparse crowds.

It’s not a major issue in the top flight but as you drop down the divisions it is alarming.

Is the GAA doing everything in its power to arrest that?

Well, tomorrow’s fixtures are an example of how it’s not. All the games throw in at 2pm bar one - Roscommon-Meath at Hyde Park, which gets underway at 1pm.

I believe that the two counties came together, in the spirit of common sense, and agreed that the game ought to be played earlier to avoid a direct clash with the Ireland-England rugby international and Croke Park gave them the green light.

But why didn’t Croke Park show the initiative?

And in the event of that not happening, why was it only in Roscommon and Meath that the officials had such foresight?

Eamon de Valera was right - rugby suits the temperament of the Irish - and a big game like this takes away from the GAA’s revenue streams.

That professional sports dominate kindred amateur sports is a fact of sporting life.

A few weeks back, Tipperary played Limerick at Semple Stadium. Tipp have the most exciting bunch of young players they’ve probably ever had yet a game against local rivals could only attract about 500. The ground was 98% empty.

A great traditional footballing county like Offaly, trying to go places under an enthusiastic new manager, only had a few hundred in O’Connor Park the same day against Waterford.

Has anyone come across any concerted campaigns in the local media to get people out to games?

Are star players like Niall McNamee, Barry Grogan or Ian Ryan, for example, being sent to the schools to get the kids, who would be admitted for free, out to the games? Not a bit of it.

Players are putting in a huge effort, yet the county boards aren’t doing near as much as they should to get a groundswell of support behind them. And it’s not just the small counties either.

There were only 3,500 at the Meath-Kildare game in Navan on a fine Saturday night - two of the best supported counties out there.

A game like that should be well capable of drawing up to 10,000. That’s what it would have got 10 or 15 years ago.

Let’s try and get some progressive, outside-the-box thinking from those in power. Anything less does the players a disservice as they continually run out to paltry crowds. Because no game looks good in an empty stadium.