The All-Ireland starts here. Donegal are coming to Killarney this weekend and there are big games in Cork, Galway and Roscommon as well. I know teams can still afford to lose a game but the shadow boxing is over. Time to get down to it.I was listening to the radio the other morning and the sports news had a bit about the Cork hurler Darragh Fitzgibbon needing to get his appendix out. He’s going to miss a few weeks, definitely the rest of the Munster championship. They mightn’t have him available for a month. It’s a big blow but they’ll surely have him back for the All-Ireland so Cork will be able to absorb it and move on.Imagine the equivalent of Fitzgibbon in football. You’re talking about one of the elite players in the country, the likes of a Seán O’Shea or a Michael Langan. We don’t know yet who is going to turn up fit for Kerry or Donegal this weekend but the one thing we do know is that time is ticking. Any lad whose appendix is thinking of popping would want to tell it to hang in there another while yet.People are still getting used to the new format for the All-Ireland but the basic fact of it is that there’s only another three weeks before some teams are done for the summer. Two weeks after that, there’ll only be four teams left altogether. There’s not a whole pile of time to waste for anybody.Take a team like Roscommon, who have been on a high since beating Galway in the Connacht final. They have Tyrone on Sunday and we’ve seen plenty of times in the past where Roscommon teams got a big result in Connacht but then lost to an Ulster team. If that happens here, they could be drawn against the loser of Kerry v Donegal in a straight, knock-out game. The scenes in the Hyde after the Connacht final won’t count for much then.Now that all the provinces are finished, I think we can make a decent enough stab at separating the contenders from the rest. Most people probably have three teams who they reckon can win the All-Ireland – Kerry, Donegal and Armagh. I would throw Galway into the mix, for what it’s worth. And this is where the injury factor comes in.In Kerry, people are hoping that they’ve got the knocks out of the way early and that players will start filing back in as the weeks go by. It’s never that simple. Getting Gavin White back is a big plus but they’ll need Seánie and Joe O’Connor and Tom O’Sullivan and Briain Ó Beaglaoich back soon too. And for nobody else to get hurt in the meantime. Unlikely.If I had to do a ranking with everybody fit, I would go: Kerry, Donegal, Armagh and Galway. But if Langan is out for the foreseeable – and everybody is hearing rumours in both directions on that one – I’d probably jump Armagh over Donegal. And even though they would have been annoyed to lose the Connacht final, I can see Galway being right in the mix.Cork's Chris 0g Jones kicks Kerry's Gavin White attempts to block in the Munster football final. Photograph: INPHO/Dan Sheridan Go back and look at their team at the end of the Connacht final. They had Damien Comer, Shane Walsh and Seán Kelly all on the pitch and got a good half-hour of them all playing together. That has hardly happened at any stage since the last time they were in an All-Ireland final. If they can keep them fit and you throw Rob Finnerty and Paul Conroy into the mix, Galway are a match for anyone.Availability is nearly the biggest factor now. We make a big song and dance about managers and tactical plans and everything else. But it’s a players’ game at the back of it all and as we saw over the weekend, these matches come down to who you have on the pitch and what they are able to do.Galway’s Shane Walsh celebrates scoring a 2 pointer against Roscommon. Photograph: INPHO/James Crombie Why did Armagh beat Monaghan? Because when it came down to it in extra-time, Monaghan were out on their feet. They had a huge run of injuries through the league and even though they have a lot of their fellas back, most of them have very little football played. Armagh have a core group of 12 or 13 players who played more or less every game in the league – that base of fitness and battle-hardness told in extra-time.Why did Westmeath beat Dublin? Because crazy as it might seem, they had the better players. Whatever it is about the game under the new rules, Westmeath had more lads who were able to come on to the ball at pace, who were able to drive at the opposition and who were able to take their scores. They also went after the Dublin kick-out, which is a real weakness at this stage.Pace is huge in the game at the minute. If you have it, you better use it. Roscommon won Connacht by going full pelt on the offensive at every opportunity. Westmeath turned that game around on Sunday by being brave with the ball and taking their man on in the Dublin half of the pitch.It’s a real sign of the change in attitude brought about by the new rules. You can’t go into your shell and just hope to survive. There’s not a lot of room to be slow and methodical either. You have to go and take the game to the opposition.[ Don’t be fooled - there’s more to winning kickouts than pure piggeryOpens in new window ]Apart from the fact that they don’t seem to have the players any more, that’s a big problem Dublin have. Where’s the intent? Where’s the drive? Where’s the old Dubs cockiness, the bit of city boy attitude? All the bravery on show on Sunday came from the Westmeath players. If I was in Dublin training this week, that’s what I’d be worried about.The championship starts this week. But if you don’t get your skates on and go after it, the end will come quicker than you think.