SATURDAY 22 APRIL
Connacht SFC
Sligo v New York, Markievicz Park, 2.30pm
Munster SFC
Kerry v Tipperary, Fitzgerald Stadium, 4pm
Limerick v Clare, TUS Gaelic Grounds, 7pm
Ulster SFC
Cavan v Armagh, Kingspan Breffni Park, 6.30pm
SUNDAY 23 APRIL
Leinster SFC
Westmeath v Louth, Páirc Tailteann, 2pm
Kildare v Wicklow, Netwatch Cullen Park, 2.30pm
Laois v Dublin, Laois Hire O'Moore Park, 3.30pm
Offaly v Meath, Glenisk O'Connor Park, 4pm
Ulster SFC
Down v Donegal, Páirc Esler, 2pm
Connacht SFC
Roscommon v Galway, Hyde Park, 4pm
ONLINE
Live blogs on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News app on both Saturday and Sunday. Highlights also available across the weekend.
RADIO
Live commentary and updates on RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport and Sunday Sport. Also live updates on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta's Spórt an tSathairn and Spórt an Lae.
TV
GAAGO screens three live provincIal championship games on Saturday, with Sligo v New York commencing at 2.25pm, while Kerry v Tipperary coverage starts at 2.55pm. Cavan v Armagh will be shown live on GAAGO from 6.10pm, with full panel and analysis before 6.30pm throw-in.
Down v Donegal will be broadcast live on GAAGO and BBC NI from 1.40pm on Sunday. The Sunday Game Live will show Roscommon v Galway on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, throw-in at 4pm. Laois v Dublin will be screened on GAAGO from 2.25pm.
Highlights of all the weekend's action on The Sunday Game, RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player, from 9.30pm. Plus all Saturday's action available on all new The Saturday Game, from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
WEATHER
Saturday: Mostly cloudy with scattered outbreaks of showery rain, some of which may turn heavy. Highest temperatures of 9 to 13 degrees in very light and variable breezes.
Sunday: Some bright spells but there will be a good deal of cloud. Showers may turn heavy and prolonged in the northeast later in the day. Maximum temperatures of 10 to 15 degrees, coolest in the north in moderate northwest winds.
For more go to met.ie.
All noisy on the western front
By some strange quirk of the calendar, we've gone from two games last weekend to a whole ten this weekend, the latter also being when the hurling championship throws in.
On balance, the biggest game of the weekend is the televised game between the teams ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the Allianz Football League.
Notwithstanding the dangers of disrespecting Davy Burke's boys, most pundits are leaning towards Galway, citing their adaptability and their greater capacity for dealing with the methodical game-plan the Rossies unveiled in Castlebar.
To no great surprise, Burke has stuck with the same XV which stormed the Mayo citadel. On a filthy day, their defence were in 'you shall not pass' mode, while up front Diarmuid Murtagh kicked two glorious points down the home stretch.
Like much of the rest of the Gaelic Games community, Galway have spent a fair portion of the past month in Portugal following their eventful league campaign. While league is league and the public will soon have forgotten who won it, Padraic Joyce seemed more than a bit miffed after the final, especially at the refereeing display.
The news on the team front is that 2018 All-Star Ian Burke is named to start at corner forward, with Rob Finnerty, who has been nursing injuries, held in reserve. Last year's Footballer of the Year nominee Cillian McDaid still hasn't returned to the starting line-up, though is on the bench at No. 24. Salthill's John Maher holds onto the jersey he had for the league.
Most interestingly of all, Joyce has plumped for Corofin's experienced keeper Bernard Power in goal over Conor Gleeson, despite the latter keeping a clean sheet in the league final.
The day before, we are treated to something more of a novelty.
The New York squad landed in Dublin on Thursday ahead of their first ever Connacht semi-final. Having finally overcome Leitrim - after previous close shaves back in 2003 and 2018 - their reward is a game against the province's newly anointed 'Big Dogs' in Markievicz Park.
Manager Johnny McGeeney insisted that the visa issues that would once have hampered them no longer apply. They bring their full complement, which includes a couple of native New Yorkers (Jamie Boyle, Mikey Brosnan), one Londonder (Killian Butler) and players from 14 counties - Galway, Kerry and Tipperary especially well represented.
Sligo football is stirring again after a decade on the canvas. The county has been more or less an irrelevance since the 2015 Connacht final annihilation at the hands of Mayo, on an afternoon when Aidan O'Shea at full-forward resembled a minor player dropped into an U14 game in an act of administrative foul play.
At their lowest point, they lost every competitive match they played in 2019 and then didn't even contest the 2020 campaign after an outbreak of COVID the week before the Galway tie.
But now, they're home to the back-to-back Connacht U20 champions, have just secured promotion back to Division 3 and a fortuitous draw has left them likely participants in the Sam Maguire group phase.
Home discomfort in Connacht
Kevin McStay moved heaven and earth to insist that the 2018 Connacht final would not be moved from Hyde Park, despite its depleted capacity at the time. Had he perused the record books, he might not have bothered.
Podcast talking heads struggling to come down on one side or the other often plump for the home team, when you're talking Connacht, the instinct should be to do the opposite.
Of the 23 Connacht championship matches played between any two of Mayo, Galway and Roscommon since 2011, 16 have been won by the away team, just five by the home team, with the remaining two played at a neutral venue.
Home advantage doesn't so much 'count for nothing' in Connacht, as count the other way.
Roscommon, who've claimed famous championship victories in Tuam in 2001 and Salthill in 2017 and '19, haven't beaten Galway in the Hyde in summer-time since the 1990 Connacht final, back when Tony McManus was still a leading man in the full-forward line.
Since then, Galway have beaten the Rossies in Hyde Park in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2012, 2018 and 2021. Furthermore, Roscommon haven't managed a win at home to Mayo in championship since the 2001 Connacht decider.
Notwithstanding its famous backdrop, the Hyde has been far from a graveyard for Roscommon's neighbours.
Sharks in Ulster
In the new dispensation, Ulster football is now hailed as the home of carefree, cavalier football and we have two tasty quarter-final games between relegated Division 1 teams and two sides who spent the spring in Division 3.
Several pundits have spied a pair of shocks in the offing, although it's debatable whether one even constitutes a shock given the events of the last few months.
Cavan have surely been lining up this one for a long time. Mickey Graham's side are dangerous opponents who've recently made a habit of overperforming in the Ulster championship. Also, they're coming up against a team who've a habit of underperforming in the Ulster championship. They've won the two most recent championship games against Armagh, in 2016 and 2019.
Graham evinced a retro disinterest in the league in interviews ahead of the 2020 Ulster final, saying it was "all about championship." Cavan famously won the Anglo Celt and then slipped into Division 4 a few months later. Graham has been forced to pay more attention to the league by its subsequent linkage with the championship.
Cavan did all they could by winning Division 3, though fate has meant they still need to reach a provincial decider to break into the group phase.
Armagh's stock fell during the league, the purists disenchanted by their defensive turn after last year's exuberance. They looked fairly slick in the win over Antrim, though the opposition weren't hectic.
Rian O'Neill and Jarly Óg Burns, who missed the Antrim game through injury and flu respectively, are named on the bench for this evening.
McGeeney, often jocular with the press these days, joked about the rumours of a bust-up with O'Neill that ran rampant on forums ahead of the Tyrone game.
Targeting an Ulster title would have been considered a worthwhile goal for Armagh in particular, given their recent record, though Ciaran McKeever, in an oft-quoted remark, said there was no incentive to go and win it.
The extent of Armagh's poor record in the province is unappreciated. They've won four matches in Ulster since 2012 and haven't reached the final since 2008. In fact, every other Ulster county has reached a provincial final since Armagh last did, including Antrim in 2009.
Donegal's first season post Michael Murphy has so far gone worse than even the county's most lurid pessimists could have predicted.
After Paddy Carr's axing late in the league campaign, Donegal didn't muster much of a reaction against Roscommon, shipping a heavy loss in the Hyde.
With Paddy McBrearty injured and Ryan McHugh opting out, the season already feels like a write off.
Aidan O'Rourke, standing in as interim manager and trying to salvage something from 2023, acknowledged the squad had "taken an emotional battering" and that the negativity had effected some of the players.
However, he added this week, "there's a lot of really experienced footballers in the group and a lot of quality... there isn’t a team in the Ulster championship that we would be afraid of."
At the unveiling of RTÉ's new stable of pundits last February, Peter Canavan identified Down as possible dark horses. Conor Laverty, a successful U20 boss, has settled things after a rancorous 2022 season.
His arrival seems to have calmed the rumbling dispute between Kilcoo and the rest of Down outside of Kilcoo. They did ultimately miss out on promotion after a costly away defeat in a thriller against Fermanagh.
Facing reality in Munster
Saturday evening's game in the Gaelic Grounds presents a straight shootout for a place in the Sam Maguire group phase, both teams having tumbled into the second tier competition on the basis of league form.
Two contrasting situations, one set-up is an oasis of stability, the other riven by instability. The visitors have had the same manager for the last 10 seasons, the home side are on their second of the inter-county season.
Limerick beat Clare on penalties in Munster last year - the first ever football championship match so decided - though that was a couple of managers ago now.
After that, Clare re-grouped, beating Meath and Roscommon en route to the last-eight stage, where Derry were a couple of bridges too far.
Limerick's final campaign under Billy Lee went as well as could reasonably be expected, with promotion to Division 2 and victories over Clare and Tipp in Munster. The manner of the provincial final defeat was a sobering reminder that there will always be a ceiling on their expectations.
Their league campaign was almost entirely disastrous, the centrepoint being the swift ditching of Ray Dempsey as manager on the players' request.
While results didn't pick up notably after - they were heavily beaten by Clare in a dead rubber in Round 7 - incoming boss Mark Fitzgerald insists that "morale is fine now" and has described this Saturday's game as a "free shot."
Elsewhere in Munster, Two-time All-Star and current Tipp selector Declan Browne didn't go out of his way to sell tickets for this one, announcing after the Waterford game: "There is no point saying we are going to beat Kerry. We are not."
Tipperary endured a dismal spring, finishing bottom of Division 3, mustering only one point via a draw away to fellow basement dwellers Longford. They subsequently made very heavy weather of Waterford in the opening round.
Two-time All-Star and current Tipp selector Declan Browne didn't go out of his way to sell tickets for this one, announcing after the Waterford game: "There is no point saying we are going to beat Kerry. We are not."
The All-Ireland champions, who won their three home games and lost all four away games in Division 1, have Brian Ó Beaglaoich and Stephen O'Brien back in consideration this weekend, though both are starting on the bench.
They are close to full strength for Saturday, with the team named bearing only three changes from last year's All-Ireland final, with Paul Murphy, Dara Moynihan and Tony Brosnan all starting in place of the returning Ó Beaglaoich and O'Brien, as well as the retired David Moran.
Kerry, needless to say, will win by however much they decide they want to win by, the margin dictated by how sadistic they happen to be feeling this weekend.
Safety nets disappearing in Leinster
Clare's one point win over Cork was worse news for Meath than anyone, Cork included. The flimsy safety net provided by their sixth place finish in Division 2 was duly whipped from underneath them.
Colm O'Rourke's side need to win their next two games and reach the Leinster final or else slip into the Tailteann Cup.
Meath's early league form proved a bit of a mirage, Derry providing a brutal reality check in Round 3. They haven't gotten back on the horse since and even failed to beat a Limerick team who dumped their manager a few days later.
They will be slight favourites against an Offaly team who were hit by tragedy during the league, with the sudden death of manager Liam Kearns.
While they still had a shot at promotion heading into the final game, they shipped a very heavy loss at home to Down. A narrow victory over a Longford team in freefall this spring wouldn't convince anyone.
On the same side of the draw, Mickey Harte's Louth, one of the big success stories of the 2023 league, face a Westmeath side who are already guaranteed a round robin place and may have limited incentive to bust a gut before then.
Dessie Dolan's side treated their supporters to a rather bizarre and frustrating league campaign, in which they amassed a score difference of +56 while finishing fourth. Having run up the score in maulings of Longford and Antrim, they proceeded to lose to Down and Fermanagh.
On the other side of the draw, Dublin are in O'Moore Park. Dessie Farrell's side sleepwalked through most of the league, cranking it up in time to win the Division 2 final.
In any event, the actual story of Dublin's league performance was rendered an irrelevant sideshow next to the news that 41-year old Stephen Cluxton was rejoining the panel. That news was announced with characteristic hoopla by Farrell in the latter half of his Dubs TV interview ahead of their Round 7 league game against Louth. Cluxton dons No. 16 in Portlaoise, with David O'Hanlon, impressive during the league campaign, holding the starter's jersey.
Lucan's Daire Newcombe and Ballyboden's Ross McGarry are named at corner back and corner forward respectively.
St Conleth's Park is currently a building site, with Kildare and Wicklow meeting in neutral territory in Carlow. For Oisín McConville and Wicklow, the year has already been a reasonable success with the principal goal of Division 4 promotion achieved.
Kildare, by contrast, are languishing very far from bonus territory. Their late burst in the league did not entirely guarantee Sam Maguire qualification. Two victories for the Division 3 teams in Ulster this weekend and Kildare will need a historic victory over Dublin to avoid the second tier comp.
Watch Roscommon v Galway in the Connacht Football Championship semi-final on Sunday from 3.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on the RTÉ News app or RTÉ.ie/Sport or listen to live commentary on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
