Ah, the league. The star of spring. Dimmer than its summer cousin perhaps but still one that emits enough light to ease us out of the darkest months.
Like a set of celebrity siblings, the box-office appeal of the hurling and football editions has diverged in recent years.
As football has persisted with a lopsided provincial knockout system – and seems set to still – the lower-division counties in the big-ball game have made the league at least as big a priority as getting hammered by their local All-Ireland contender.
Hurling's revamped tiered round-robin championships (did we really only have two years of them?) have provided much more in the way of evenly-matched battles. The only problem is that the change has highlighted the appetiser status of the spring competition even more – it’s the league before the real league in effect.
The pandemic has also messed with the concept of time and format to the extent that it might be necessary to remind you of the structures.
As you may or may not recall, Division 1 is now a two-group affair of theoretically equal strength, which is certainly an improvement on the previous ludicrous situation that meant fourth place in the old 1B (the 10th best team) got a place in the knockout last eight.
The new format originally had quarter-finals as well, suggesting somebody in Croke Park was on commission for every extra round that could be added in, but the advent of the split-season has mercifully left us with just semi-finals between the top finishers in Group A (Cork, Clare, Offaly, Galway, Limerick, Wexford) and B (Antrim, Dublin, Kilkenny, Laois, Tipperary, Waterford).
Last year that was Galway and Kilkenny, who are now joint holders, having inconveniently avoided meeting in the championship.
The bottom team in each group will contest a relegation play-off and the losers will be replaced by the winners of 2A.
That division is still a six-team group with a final, most likely to be contested by the Leinster Championship’s new sixth team Westmeath and the Kerry side they defeated in last year’s Joe McDonagh Cup decider.
So, who cares really? Well, everybody of course, just to varying degrees and for different reasons.
Division 1 teams will play five matches in seven weeks followed by a break of a month (for those outside the last four) until the Leinster and Munster hurling championships both begin on Easter weekend, the 16 and 17 April.
The sides that make the semi-finals and final will then have just three and two weeks respectively to turn their attention to championship.
The tighter new schedule means less time to integrate new players and ease veterans back in, while a significant injury could end a player’s season much more prematurely than previously.
Even to those that purely consider it a tune-up, a tune-up is now even more important, as anyone who has ever attempted a club fundraiser 10k straight from several years on the couch will testify.
Limerick, as era-dominating teams tend to, will want to reclaim the title they held from 2019-20, as much to maintain the psychological effects of winning on both their own squad and their cowed rivals. John Kiely's decision to start nine of the XV who destroyed Cork in the All-Ireland final against Wexford speaks to that.
Wexford are led by Darragh Egan, one of three first-term managers alongside Tipperary’s Colm Bonnar and some lad called Henry in Galway.
Every new manager wants at least a couple of wins in the league to build confidence but finding new players would seem to be of bigger concern for Bonnar and Shefflin, who have legend-size holes in their squads following the retirements of Brendan Maher, Paudie Maher and Joe Canning.
The way the divisions have been organised means Offaly, rising again after a sustained slump, can realistically expect to be in a relegation play-off against Laois or Antrim.
Dublin and Clare could probably both do with a morale-building run to the knockout stages after flattering to deceive in recent seasons. As much as it means in January, the Dubs issued a statement of intent in walking the Walsh Cup, winning their four games by an average of 12.5 points.
However, Clare will be missing some key men for a while, not least Tony Kelly, so Brian Lohan would likely settle for getting to the championship in one piece to pursue his stated minimum goal of an All-Ireland semi-final.
They begin the competition today against the Rebels, who skipped the Munster Hurling Cup (rebranded from League, in a snub to fashion) in favour of a team holiday in Tenerife.
It will be interesting to see whether Kieran Kingston’s men are behind the curve in fitness or hungry to get going again after their Croke Park heartbreak.
Many observers rate Waterford as the likeliest immediate threat to Limerick hegemony. Presumably, Liam Cahill agrees, or he wouldn’t have stayed and turned down the opportunity to promote members of his back-to-back All-Ireland U21/U20 winning Tipperary sides to the senior ranks.
As with Kilkenny and the Ballyhale contingent, Waterford’s main priority might be resting and reintegrating their All-Ireland club finalists - Pauric Mahony has made a welcome return for Ballygunner – in the nine weeks between that decider and the start of the provincial championships.
Davy Fitzgerald, whose passion on the sideline will be missed, once retorted to a suggestion that he was targeting a league triumph with: "I couldn’t give a f**k, right. I just want to win every game I can win."
Brian Cody might agree, with less asterisks, but at the same time has never met a trophy he didn’t want to take home.
It's still just a preview show but the stars are back on the big stage with little time to lose. Let them shine.
Listen to Cork v Clare in the Allianz Hurling League live on Saturday Sport, RTÉ Radio 1. Watch Kerry v Dublin in the Allianz Football League live on RTÉ 2 on Saturday (7pm), follow all the football and hurling action with our live blogs on RTÉ Sport Online and the RTÉ News app, and watch highlights on Allianz League Sunday on RTÉ2 at 9.30pm.
