1. You again?
If you are doused in holy water, have an ultra-zippy broadband connection, and have a small child to perch up on your roof holding an aerial for good luck, then you might just be able to access GAAGO for the Waterford-Clare Munster round-robin tussle.
As usual, our collective fascination about handshakes will commandeer the attention of most, but it’s a fairly safe bet to think that Waterford manager Davy Fitzgerald will not be embraced by his former archangel and protector, Clare manager Brian Lohan.
Both teams need the win of course, but for Fitzgerald, it’s a do-or-die job. A curiosity about when he faces one of his former counties – Lord knows he has enough of them – is that he usually loses.
And Clare seem to get plenty of joy out of that relationship, knocking out Davy’s Wexford in 2020 and 2021.
2. Too big to go down
When all the agonising about two different intercounty competitions was occupying the minds of football people everywhere, it was said that the success of any second-tier competition would live or die by the appetite of the players.
In its first year, the Tailteann Cup was readily embraced by Westmeath who snaffled the winner and then partied in Mullingar and committed the cardinal sin of looking like they were enjoying it.
Last year, a number of Down players decided that they didn’t fancy it. There was a sense they were too ‘big’ for it. There will be nobody taking that view this weekend.
And for Meath, this is their level now. A dreadful league campaign and a shambolic defeat to Offaly leaves them with a lot to do to win back the respect of their footballing public.
There is an argument that Tipperary, having won a provincial tournament in 2020, is now a bigger football county. The story will develop.
3. Growing shoots
There’s so much to admire about the Sligo football story this year, but especially within their U20 ranks.
There are similarities with Kildare too in that they are both labouring under the weight of history and tradition but both appear to have gotten themselves on the right track through underage development.
The neutrals will find themselves rooting for the human story of Dillon Walsh, the Sligo player who celebrated his 18th birthday by scoring the winning point against Galway in the Connacht final.
Since then though he took ill, attending Sligo General Hospital and having had a spell recovering from meningitis.
Beating Roscommon, Mayo and Galway in Connacht before Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final has already shown Sligo’s pedigree.
4. It couldn’t happen. Could it?
Without a title since 1957, Louth fans make the short journey to Croke Park in more hope than expectation.
But they won’t match the ambitions of their manager Mickey Harte. Since coming into the county, he and Gavin Devlin have transformed the county grounds’ physical make-up, the county underage structures, and the senior mindset.
In beating Kildare in the semi-final, Dublin recorded their narrowest winning margin in Leinster since their spellbinding run began in 2011. There are signs that the old empire is crumbling and that the talent pool was a lot more shallow that some of the giddy pronouncements.
Returns for Jack McCaffrey, Paul Mannion and Stephen Cluxton reinforces that view. The question is if Dublin are merely kicking into gear and minding themselves through a Leinster campaign.
5. Not so fussed now?
At the launch of the Ulster championship in Armagh’s Palace Demesne, the Armagh selector Ciaran McKeever made a brilliant play.
Knowing that Armagh haven’t won an Ulster title since 2008 — when McKeever himself was on of the team’s key figures — and haven’t even returned to the provincial decider since then, he ran down the significance of the competition in the eyes of his team.
“The way the whole season is crammed in now it looks like this is the beginning of the end of the Ulster championship the way it’s all going,” he said.
“We will be going out to try and compete to win every match but we are under no illusion – our main priority is the Super 16s. That’s when the real football starts.”
Well, here they are now in the Ulster final, and with Kieran McGeeney’s first chance of significant silverware in nine years of trying.
Does the real football start now?
