Dublin will have to cope without Con in the short term
By the 45th minute of Saturday night’s game against Armagh, all six of Dublin’s starting forwards had contributed at least three points or a goal from play. In fact, five of them had done so before half-time – and in a beautifully balanced ratio too.
Luke Breathnach swished four points off his right cutting in from the left, Paddy Small was whipping points off his left sprinting in from the right, Seán Bugler finished the half with a buzzer-beater two-pointer from the top of the arc. Niall Scully was splitting the posts with both feet. You were tempted to look around you and ask, “Con Who?”
But the absence of their attack leader Con O’Callaghan told in the end. Dublin only scored 10 points in the second half – two of them came via wing-back Eoin Kennedy, one was a Sully free, one was by substitute Cormac Costello. Bugler’s last score came in the 37th minute and Small drifted out of the game until he landed a desperation two-pointer in the 69th minute, by which time Dublin had gone from 11 points up to four behind.
O’Callaghan wasn’t just missed in the scoring stakes. When Armagh came with that huge pressure around the middle in the second half, Dublin had nobody to quell it. A sometimes overlooked part of O’Callaghan’s wonder down the years has been his ability to come out to the midfield jungle and lay down the law.
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For someone who isn’t built like a rugby lock, the three-time All Star is incredibly strong over his head. When Armagh were dominating the Dublin kick-out, Hugh O’Sullivan could really have done with O’Callaghan being there to aim at.
His last appearance for Dublin was against Kerry on February 21st, when he came off at half-time with what looked like twinge of the hamstring. When asked on Saturday night whether Dublin would have him next weekend for the crucial game against Galway in Salthill, Ger Brennan was notably cautious about it all.
“He hasn’t trained fully yet,” Brennan said. “We would have been hopeful. But even if he was ready, it’d be risky to put him in now. He has a kind of reoccurrence of some of the knocks he’s had. So we’re taking a slightly longer-term approach with him now, given what he suffered in this league and again last year.”
Sounds like Dublin are going to have to try and stay in Division One without him. — Malachy Clerkin
Tipp turnover continues at pace
Although Tipperary closed the book on any potential involvement in the relegation stakes by beating Waterford at the weekend, the league also marked a further year since the county last won the title, a wait which next season will stand at 19 years – their second-longest drought in the century of the competition.
It will also extend to 62 years the length of time since the county won the league as All-Ireland champions – an important year, as 1965 was the last time they retained the All-Ireland.
Their campaign rounds off next Saturday with a match against Kilkenny, themselves spared a relegation ‘interest’ by Tipp’s win over Waterford. The downside of the league lies in the comprehensive defeats by likely finalists, Cork and Limerick.
So, was Liam Cahill happy with his team’s league?
“We’d like to be in a league final, to be honest. That was our goal, to try and get back to a final but I suppose we have introduced a lot of new players throughout, as well. People tend to forget that our panel has evolved so much.
“Okay, we were fortunate enough to win the All-Ireland last year, but we have [introduced] 19 new players in our squad over the course of 2025 and into 2026. That’s a huge turnaround in numbers and staying competitive and staying at the top level.
“It is something we tend to forget that we are trying to stay hugely competitive and win championships while bringing through this group of players, so a lot of our players are only in their first and second year of intercounty hurling, and we tend to forget that.”
Last year, Cahill built All-Ireland success by developing throughout the league and reaching the final, continuing to learn from the big defeat in the final by Cork.
Has he learned enough this season to close the 61-year gap since last putting Liam MacCarthy back-to-back? They may have missed the first marker but there remains four months to redress history. — Seán Moran
The Kildare slide
This has been a worrying period for Brian Flanagan – with Kildare currently enduring a four-game losing streak and dangling over the relegation trapdoor. The Lilywhites won promotion from Division Three in Flanagan’s first season at the helm in 2025, winning five of their seven matches. They subsequently lost to Louth in a Leinster semi-final but responded by sweeping away all comers on their way to lifting the Tailteann Cup.
But the momentum from last year is in jeopardy of slipping away. Kildare lost a total of only four games in 2025 – but already this term they have equalled that figure.
They started the league with a solid draw against Tyrone in Omagh and followed it up with a home win over Offaly. A push for promotion was on the cards. And then it wasn’t.
Kildare have now lost four on the bounce – home losses to Derry and Meath, and away defeats to Cavan and Cork. The most recent losses were heavy beatings too – a 14-point hammering at the hands of Meath and then a nine-point defeat to Cork last weekend. They are now occupying the second relegation spot on the table. And unless they beat Louth in their last game next weekend, Kildare will be making an immediate return to Division Three. And even a victory in Newbridge might not be enough should Cavan (v Derry) and Tyrone (v Cork) pick up points in their respective fixtures.
In terms of the championship, as Tailteann Cup winners Kildare will compete in the Sam Maguire competition this season no matter what happens in the league but demotion for the Lilywhites would have an impact on where the Division Three promoted teams might be playing their football this summer. It’s fair to say that for all involved Kildare dicing with relegation wasn’t part of the plan. — Gordon Manning
Roscommon defy all forecasts with league final shout
In fairness Met Éireann did forecast widespread wintry showers on Sunday afternoon, moving in mostly from the west. As it turned out the majority of those happened to accumulate and swirl over The Hyde.
Not that Roscommon were ruffled by the occasionally vicious conditions, battling against Donegal’s second-half momentum and that crossfire hurricane to hand them their first defeat of the campaign – and with that keep themselves within a shout of making the league final on Sunday week.
It’s partly outside of their hands from here: Donegal are still in pole position, only needing to be beat relegated Monaghan to progress. Kerry will join them if they win or even draw against Armagh next Sunday. But if Roscommon can beat Mayo in Castlebar, and Armagh beat Kerry, then Roscommon can look forward to a league final.
Few people would have forecast that at the start of the league. Even if Roscommon were unlucky to lose their first game against Kerry, denied by a hooter-beating score, 2-18 to 1-20.
In response, Roscommon reeled off three successive wins over Monaghan, Armagh and Galway – scoring 3-16, 3-18, and 2-16 – before a no-show against Dublin on their home ground, losing 1-21 to 2-7.
All that meant Mark Dowd’s team were still within the relegation zone before Sunday’s rousing home win over Donegal, 2-20 to 0-20, which has left them sitting pretty on eight points. Come what may next Sunday, that’s a satisfying return for any first-season manager, and they are playing some excellent attacking football.
“It’s only when you’re on the pitch, you really understand what it’s like,” Enda Smith said of the conditions, after the Roscommon forward had helped himself to 0-6, including a brace of two-pointers.
“We’d two weeks after the Dublin defeat, so just reflected on our own performances, and focused on the lot, Armagh and Galway too. We weren’t looking at it as a crisis, it was just a day we didn’t execute the way we liked. Mayo will be hurting after the Kerry game, but if we can get a similar performance, that will lead us nicely into the championship in a few weeks’ time.”
Assuming Roscommon get past New York, and Mayo get past London, the teams will meet again in the Connacht football semi-final, back in Castlebar, at the end of April. Plenty left to play for in this league so. — Ian O’Riordan
Seven teams in battle for promotion from Division Four
Before a ball was kicked in anger last weekend, the gap between first and sixth position in Division Four was, fittingly, four points. This morning the gap between first and seventh position is now just two points. Remarkably, in the last round of Division Four games there are seven teams in with a chance of promotion. Outside of Waterford, the other sides in the eight-team division are in the mix for promotion. Carlow and Wicklow have eight points, Longford and London have seven, while Antrim, Tipperary and Leitrim are all on six.
The remaining fixtures in Division Four are: Antrim v London, Carlow v Leitrim, Longford v Wicklow and Tipperary v Waterford. If you happen to be at a loose end this St Patrick’s Eve, knock yourself out jotting down the endless catalogue of permutations.
Because for all the criticisms of the GAA’s competition structures and formats, the league continues to show it is the fairest of them all in terms of teams finding their level.
In the final round of games, across the four divisions, 26 of the 32 teams have something to play for next weekend. — Gordon Manning
