Championship enters the killing zone on a weekend of no second chances

Those who have been unhappy with the low fatality rate in the championship to date, can be of good cheer this weekend, as the GAA turns on the electric zapper and counties begin to fall like flies.

By Saturday evening, we will be down to the last four in the All-Ireland hurling championship. The TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick has seen a good deal of action this summer, the scheduled last of it the quarter-finals between Clare and Dublin and old rivals, Galway and Tipperary.

Hurling has had a storied summer, effortlessly attracting plaudits while the limited stylings of the football championship have been caught between derision and anger: “it’s ridiculous you’re so bad.”

Meanwhile, the more ‘storied’ (were that possible!) of the provincial hurling championships in Munster drew in crowds in record numbers to thrill at an unfeasible litany of one-point thrillers and gravity-defying draws.

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Even Leinster got in on the act on the day of the provincial finals. Munster might have had champions Limerick winning by what this year has been ‘the usual point’ (as former Taoiseach and Cork hurler Jack Lynch morosely recalled another All-Ireland defeat by Kilkenny) but later that afternoon, the same happened out East.

The mise-en-scene might have been an underwhelmingly sparse crowd at Croke Park but Cillian Buckley’s late, late goal enraptured Kilkenny supporters and the television audience and also turned Galway’s hard-earned two-point lead to dust.

As a result, Kilkenny are themselves the television audience this evening and Galway are back in action, taking on Tipperary for the right to get to Croke Park in a fortnight. Tipperary, for whom nearly every match is a cross-border rivalry, have had particularly interesting matches against their western neighbours down the years.

In the 15 contests since they first engaged in the modern era in 1987, a scarcely believable 11 of them have ended with just a score in the difference – five times the margin was down to a single point.

Tipperary have been practising their manager Liam Cahill’s gospel of goals with 14 in five matches but Galway have amassed 13 in four so green flags may well be in evidence on the Ennis Road.

The first match pairs perennial Munster finalists Clare against Dublin in re-enactment of a less furious rivalry. In fact the counties never met in the whole of the 20th century but have made up for it since and this is the sixth meeting this century.

Earlier in the afternoon, the football championship will commence the thinning out of another four counties in the preliminary quarter-finals, a process to be finalised on Sunday with the most newsworthy of the fixtures, the meeting of Connacht rivals Mayo and Galway.

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There were those in the West, who might have pencilled them in for an All-Ireland final after they dominated this year’s league but last week’s upheavals have redefined a few ambitions.

Last week’s final round of group fixtures saw teams that had nearly given up producing wins to vault into second place, which bestowed home advantage, and teams that had been serenely sailing home as group leaders dumped into third place, like Mayo, or demoted to second, like Galway.

These encounters rarely respond to the stimulus of form and with both counties trying to rebound from depressing defeats, who knows who has form and who needs to defy it. Galway manager Pádraic Joyce has named injury concerns Damien Comer, current All Star, and captain Seán Kelly in his line-up.

It’s become a side spectacle at matches, watching as the apparently afflicted walk on to the pitch to play a match or else have the flickering candle of hope extinguished by the public address: “there are some changes to your programme”.

Saturday’s fixture list features three counties, who earned home advantage with unexpected results a week ago. Cork’s late rampage against Mayo got the latter into the pickle they’re in on Sunday in Galway but also propelled themselves into a home tie against Roscommon.

They played recently in the now defunct ‘Super 8s’ and the visitors won that most despised of events, a ‘dead rubber’. This weekend is no such thing and the winners go to next week’s quarter-finals.

Others looking to transition similarly are Kildare, whose late point forced Roscommon down to Cork, who welcome Monaghan to their temporary home in Glenisk O’Connor Park, Tullamore.

Monaghan last week obliged Donegal by losing to them and gifting their opponents an old-school home dogfight against 2021 All-Ireland champions Tyrone in an all-Ulster affair on Saturday evening in Ballybofey.

Then, back on Sunday, the Tailteann Cup will produce its second final since the Tier 2 championship was introduced last year. Nor will there be any escape from it all, as each of eight fixtures – plus two All-Ireland minor semi-finals – will be available either live on terrestrial television or streamed on GAAGO.

The Tailteann semi-finals between Down and Laois and Meath and Antrim take place in Croke Park and will have live coverage on RTÉ2 with Galway-Mayo wedged in between them on RTÉ One.

Finally for those not exhausted and able to tune in early on Monday, RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland will broadcast the draw for the coming All-Ireland quarter-final – this weekend’s survivors against last week’s group winners.

Pay attention. There’s not long left, now.