SATURDAY 17 MAY
All-Ireland SFC
Group 2
Kerry v Roscommon, Fitzgerald Stadium, 2.30pm
Group 4
Galway v Dublin, Pearse Stadium, 5pm
Tailteann Cup
Group 2
Waterford v Offaly, Walsh Park, 1.30pm
Wicklow v Laois, Aughrim, 6pm
Group 1
Tipperary v Kildare, Clonmel, 4pm
Group 3
Antrim v Limerick, Corrigan Park, 4.30pm
SUNDAY 18 MAY
All-Ireland SFC
Group 3
Clare v Down, Zimmer Biomet Páirc Chíosog, 2pm
Group 4
Mayo v Cavan, Hastings Insurance MacHale Park, 2.30pm
Tailteann Cup
Group 1
Leitrim v Sligo, Avant Money Páirc Sean MacDiarmada, 1.30pm
Group 3
London v Westmeath, Ruislip, 2pm
Group 4
Carlow v Wexford, Netwatch Cullen Park, 2.30pm
Longford v Fermanagh, Glennon Brothers Pearse Park, 3pm
ONLINE
Live blog on the All-Ireland SFC action, with Tailteann Cup updates, on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app across Saturday and Sunday.
TV
Live coverage of Kerry-Roscommon and Galway-Dublin on GAA+ on Saturday. The Tailteann Cup meeting of Leitrim and Sligo will be broadcast on GAA+ on Sunday.
Highlights on The Saturday Game (9.40pm) and The Sunday Game (9.30pm) on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
RADIO
Live commentaries and updates on Saturday Sport/Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1, Spórt an tSathairn/Spórt an Lae ar RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.
WEATHER
Saturday: Remaining sunny and warm. Highest temperatures generally of 17 to 22 or 23 degrees, with coolest conditions again in eastern coastal counties, in light to moderate easterly breezes.
Sunday: Widespread sunshine continuing through the day. Highest temperatures of 20 to 24 with light to moderate northerly winds. For more, visit met.ie.
Getting louder on the western front
Popular wisdom has it that the phrase 'Group of Death' is a misnomer in a competition where three of the four teams progress. Group 4, this time around, could test that hypothesis.
Even the fourth seeds Derry spent the spring in Division 1 and were, until relatively recently, considered realistic All-Ireland contenders.
The draw for the All-Ireland SFC group phase has provided us with some comically unbalanced groups. This is at its starkest when you set Group 3 alongside Group 4.
In the former, Division 2 champions Monaghan are plonked in a group with two teams who will spend 2026 in Division 3 - Down and Clare - as well as the jubilant new Leinster champions Louth, who, it might be remembered, would have fallen into the Tailteann Cup had they been pipped by Kildare in the provincial semi-final.
Then, in Group 4, you have four teams who spent this year in the top tier, the two 2024 All-Ireland finalists, the 2023 All-Ireland champions and the 2024 league champions - albeit the latter appear to have suffered an abrupt and precipitous decline in the past 13 months.
This all means there is plenty riding on the hotly anticipated meeting of Galway and Dublin in Pearse Stadium, which forms the second part of a double-header with the Galway-Antrim Leinster SHC game.
Defeat for either could leave them under pressure with games against Armagh and a potentially still dangerous Derry side coming down the tracks.
Galway, one of the accepted All-Ireland contenders, were the only Division 1 side to fail to beat Derry in the league, having been devoured on breaking ball in the second half. The westerners head to Celtic Park in Round 2 and would prefer to do so with a win under their belt.
The Dublin footballers head west for their first ever championship game in Salthill following the shock of not winning the Leinster title for the first time since Brian Cowan's tenure as Taoiseach.
Prophecies that the Dubs might come a cropper in Leinster were floated in the aftermath of Brian Fenton's retirement announcement but were generally met with a 'let's not get carried away' response.
Over a decade and a half, they had destroyed the morale of the rest of the province, a period in which the margin of their victories was only rarely kept to single digits.
Then came the Portlaoise uprising.
Ironically, Jim Gavin and his committee appear to have played their part in this turnaround. Dublin were demolished on their kickout in the Leinster semi-final, Meath pushing up to prevent the prospect of a wide short one and then dominated the middle third, both in the air and on breaking ball.
The sight of Ciaran Kilkenny - who over the past decade usually confined himself to shooting from the 'scoring zone' - blazing two-pointers wide in the second half indicated they were having issues adjusting to the arc.
Save for that rousing comeback win in Tralee, their away form in the league was poor, with sizable defeats away to both Armagh and Tyrone.
On the flipside, they did beat Galway by six points in Croke Park, aided by the Tribesmen's amazing profligacy in front of the posts in the first half. Sean Bugler, missing through injury in Portlaoise, buried two goals that evening but is not available on Saturday.
For the Connacht champions, there are reports that Shane Walsh is on the brink of a return - and he has been named to start anyway.
Walsh, in dazzling form in the early rounds of the league, hasn't played since Galway's loss to Dublin in Croke Park. That was the night he and Rob Finnerty were withdrawn before the second half, having, in the words of their manager, "missed 2-10 between them."
Damien Comer came on for the last 20 minutes that night, offering a glimpse of his terrifying potential under the new rules. He bulleted home one goal, which hit the net with the force of a canon-ball, and could have had a couple more. As usual, injuries have intervened again, and he is expected to be absent for a while longer.
Galway's landmark win over Dublin last year was their first in championship in 90 years. While that span included long spells where the sides never met, there were three All-Ireland finals between 1963 and 1983, the last of which was deemed so scandalous it nearly brought the association into disrepute.
Otherwise, the Tribesmen's most successful periods have tended to come during Dublin's lulls - the mid-60s, late 90s/early 2000s.
Dublin's sluggishness on breaking ball and looseness in possesson was a feature of their loss to Meath. They would need to tidy up the latter against a Galway side who are masters at holding and using the ball.
However, the away side presumably won't want for hunger after the jolt of the loss to Meath and last year's momentous quarter-final loss to Galway.
Kerry on the lookout for a test
Kerry's obligatory 'soft' draw has apparently annoyed their own supporters as much as it has the rest of the country, or so they claim.
Residents of Group 4 may not feel too many pangs of sympathy, amid allegations that the Kingdom 'doth protest too much'.
None of their Group 2 competitors have spent the spring in the top tier, though Roscommon are heading up next year. In 2024, Monaghan were their only Division 1 opposition and they were heading down.
Roscommon may have secured promotion, though their form is notably uninspiring, with just one win in their last five games, and that against London.
With Ciaran Murtagh back this year, and Ben O'Carroll fit, their forwards look as potent as ever.
But their defence is porous, the Gaelic football equivalent of the Maginot Line. In the Connacht semi-final, every Galway attack - whether measured or direct, slow or quick - seemed to yield a score.
Now, they're coming up against a ruthless Kerry attack, who have racked up 24 goals this year, the most of any county. Paudie Clifford, who has served his suspension, had a hand in so many but he has not been included in the squad here.
As in 2024, Mayo follow up a galling Connacht final loss to their neighbours with a home game against Cavan.
The inquest into the Connacht final defeat may still be dragging home, Mayo supporters still wondering how they lost a game in which they were level with 18 minutes remaining and a massive wind at their back.
Poor shooting again was the story, with the absence of a left-footed free-taker a glaring issue.
They won this game easily enough last year, though there's a fatalism in Mayo that their best shot at silverware is gone in 2025, with a lack of depth in the forwards and unimpressive stats from two-point range.
The visitors have little momentum after a limp Ulster exit against Tyrone, their 10th successive championship loss in that fixture in a barren run stretching back to the early 1980s.
They were a whisker away from sneaking promotion at the death, though they never realised as much in real-time. Dara McVeety's narrowly missed equaliser attempt against Cork occurred around the same time Kieran Martin was equalising for Westmeath against Roscommon. The joys of Round 7 of the league.
In the 'Group of Life', Clare and Down meet in Ennis. If we were being mischievous, we could dub it a dress rehearsal for next year's Tailteann Cup final.
For the second year in a row, Clare find themselves in the Sam Maguire thanks to the Munster Council's refusal to seed their provincial draw.
A win over Division 4's Tipperary in the Munster semi-final was sufficient for them to nab Offaly's spot. Nonetheless, under Peter Keane, their league form was strong, including wins over Offaly and Kildare, ultimately missing out on promotion on score difference.
Down are certainly here on merit, having won last year's Tailteann Cup. Surprisingly, it's their first tilt at the Sam Maguire group phase, their Division 3 final loss costing them a spot last year.
Conor Laverty's side were unlucky to go down on six points, after beating Monaghan in Clones on the last day. They didn't disgrace themselves on the scoreboard against Donegal, though lacked the belief to really threaten the Ulster champions.
Tailteann: Fermanagh seek to recover from setback
The first round of group games in the Tailteann Cup provoked some debate as to whether two tiers was even enough.
Is a third tier needed in the Football Championship below the Tailteann Cup?
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) May 11, 2025
Cora Staunton, Dean Rock and Enda McGinley offer their view
📺Watch the #SundayGame live - https://t.co/AKAre5FHdN pic.twitter.com/C8hKUC6GD6
Luke Loughlin landed 1-17 as Westmeath - absurdly unlucky in the league - finally registered their first win in a heavy victory over Antrim.
Kildare mercilessly bullied flat trick opposition with a whopping 0-36 point haul against Leitrim.
Carlow, however, bucked the trend with a shock away win over top seeds Fermanagh, with Mikey Bambrick firing 2-04.
The latter result has blown things open in Group 4. Carlow will seek to prolong their interim manager bounce at home to Division 4 table-toppers Wexford, who saw off Longford by nine the last day.
Kieran Donnelly's Fermanagh side, meanwhile, will seek to get back on track in the midlands, with Longford, no longer the Division 3 regulars that routinely took scalps in the 2010s. In Mike Solan's first campaign, shorn of key players like Darren Gallagher, they have only mustered two wins of any sort, against Waterford and London.
They did at least come within a whisker of surprising Wicklow in the Leinster first round before wilting in extra-time.
In Group 1, Kildare are in Clonmel to face a Tipperary team, who only lost by five to Tailteann contenders Sligo in Tubbercurry. Tony McEntee's side face Leitrim in Carrick-on-Shannon in the live streamed game on GAA+.
Watch The Saturday Game this weekend from 9.40pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
Follow a live blog on the All-Ireland Football Championship on Saturday and Sunday on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Watch highlights on The Saturday Game (9.40pm) and The Sunday Game (9.30pm) on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player and listen live on Saturday Sport and Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
