Connacht

Galway

Strengths: Formidable team. Flash forwards. All-Ireland winning experience. Some useful newcomers. Ability of players to confound mounting evidence of indiscretion must be widely envied in political circles.

Weaknesses: Question of desire after All-Ireland win. Forward gilts Ja Fallon and Michael Donnellan under-performed disastrously last year. Old father time and old mother injury have already claimed best back Tomas Mannion and are making their usual assault on Kevin Walsh, prompting general reservations about defence and centrefield.

Prediction: Compared to two years ago, there are a few more options, but loss of Mannion is a major problem. Probably good enough to beat best in Connacht but Meath?

Leitrim

Strengths: Young side. Some reasonable league performances. Element of surprise, big surprise. Coastal erosion.

Weaknesses: Limited football. Morale not great after recent championships revealed growing gap between them and rest of province.

Prediction: Continuation of the old county curse: defeat by Roscommon.

London

Strengths: Not as far to travel as New York.

Weaknesses: Terrible league. Declining playing stock and morale. Uncertainty over tube system.

Prediction: Hell or Connacht a fairly tough decision.

Mayo

Strengths: Regenerative effects of new management. Finally some new forwards unveiled. Experience and solidity. Defence still sound.

Weaknesses: Sense that they reached the end of road last year. New forwards as unreliable as recent Mayo tradition demands they be.

Prediction: For three of the last four years, only the All-Ireland champions have beaten them. Given the mileage over that time, the connection to the top has become more tenuous. Nonetheless, the semi-final meeting with Galway should decide the province.

New York

Strengths: Better to travel hopefully than to arrive. Definitely, given all that immigration bother last year. A reverse of the diaspora: send us your tired, your poor, your muddled footballers, those yearning to kick frees. The one-footed refugees from your teeming shore . . .

Weaknesses: Team that made life (a bit) difficult for Mayo last year has disintegrated like 15 lepers in a rollercoaster.

Prediction: Will do well to keep alive their probationary championship rights in this era of zero tolerance.

Roscommon

Strengths: More settled. Less hyped. Derek Duggan in good form. Esteem-building run in league included good wins over Dublin and Donegal.

Weaknesses: For all their teamwork and physical graft, they are as subtle as a Terry Keane innuendo - as Derry demonstrated in league semi-final.

Prediction: The draw indicates they should make the Connacht final. But whoever emerges from the other semi-final should have the edge.

Sligo

Strengths: Have developed well over the past few years. Benefited from the placebo of a creditable campaign in the league.

Weaknesses: Beset by injuries with Con O'Mara the latest to be struck down. A tendency to blink when stakes are high. Twice in three years they have been touched out of league play-offs on last day. Four times in five years they have been involved in championship replays. Lost the lot.

Prediction: Will be long shots against Mayo which is an advantage. The bad news is that they've every right to be.