In a summer when the exciting hurling his held sway, Gaelic football has been slightly overshadowed despite going through its own structural changes in the shape of the Super 8s.

But after this weekend's All Ireland hurling final, there will be one more chance for the football to try and capture the imagination before we head into the midst of Autumn as Dublin and Tyrone clash.

Former Tyrone All Ireland winner Enda McGinley and Dublin legend Barney Rock joined Joe Molloy and ex-Offaly All Ireland hurling champion Daithi Regan to discuss the issues in the game.

McGinley made some strong points about the current state of play in Gaelic football and what in his view needs to change.

"I personally think the football hasn't been exciting. When you see an inter-county All Ireland semi final match in Croke Park, fellas walking with the ball, soloing with the ball, no pressure on the ball, fisting it at walking page to each other, that's not the football that I know or that I love," he said, adding that it's approaching the point where a rule change may be necessary. 

But he also recalled the hardiness of his time with Tyrone in a 2003 All Ireland final clash against Ulster rivals Armagh when he suffered a bad neck injury 20 minutes into the game but managed to play on somehow.

"I was sprinting out flat out and the ball was just out of reach so I was having to have the arms out of full to try and get it," he said.

Unfortunately, he collided with Armagh's McEntee and their heads "whiplashed together".

"I literally couldn't breathe. The wind was knocked out of me," he said, before recalling those minutes on the turf alongside the similarly hurt McEntee.

Enda McGinley of Tyrone and Tony McEntee of Armagh ©INPHO/Andrew Paton

But that's when team-mate Peter Canavan came up to him with a rallying cry. 

"Canavan, who was one of our older boys, was in my ear and McEntee was down over there and I was down over here. [Canavan] was just saying, 'You're getting up before him," he said.

"I sort of swore I was fighting Ivan Drago in Rocky as I was trying to get up."

McGinley did get up and played on but having developed a searing headache by half-time and also coughing up blood.

He played on the second half but he only realised the startling extent of his neck injury when he went back to the hospital where he worked later in the week.

"The doctor looked way to long at my neck on the X-ray. The second top bone, C2, is pretty important and it had shifted to one side. If it shifts too far bad things happen," he said, adding that paralysis is not the consequence with that particular bone: "It's that high up [on your neck], that you're gone."  

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