SATURDAY
Division 1B
Carlow v Clare, Netwatch Cullen Park, 6pm
Division 2
Derry v London, Celtic Park, 1pm
Mayo v Meath, Hastings Insurance McHale Park, 2pm
Division 3
Roscommon v Tyrone, King & Moffat Dr Hyde Park, 2.30pm
Division 4
Lancashire v Longford, Abbotstown GAA Centre of Excellence, 1pm
Leitrim v Cavan, Heartland Credit Union Páirc Sean MacDiarmada, 2pm
SUNDAY
Division 1A
Galway v Waterford, Pearse Stadium, 2pm
Offaly v Limerick, Glenisk O’Connor Park, 2pm
Kilkenny v Cork, UPMC Nowlan Park, 3.15pm
Division 1B
Down v Kildare, McKenna Park, 1pm
Antrim v Dublin, Corrigan Park, 2pm
Division 2
Westmeath v Laois, TEG Cusack Park, 2pm
Division 3
Louth v Donegal, Darver, 2pm
Wicklow v Fermanagh, Aughrim, 2pm
Division 4
Warwickshire v Monaghan, Páirc na hÉireann, 1pm
ONLINE
Follow a live blog on all matches on the RTÉ News App and on rte.ie/sport.
TV
Live coverage of Kilkenny-Cork on TG4 on Sunday, throw-in at 3.15pm.
Highlights and reaction to all the weekend’s action on Allianz League Sunday, RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, 9.30pm.
RADIO
Live commentaries and updates on RTÉ Radio 1’s Saturday Sport and Sunday Sport as well as Spórt an tSathairn and Spórt an Lae on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.
WEATHER
Saturday: A bright and crisp morning for most with frost patches. Cloudier further west with outbreaks of rain and drizzle spreading eastwards through the day becoming more isolated as it clears. Scattered showers will follow in behind. Highest temperatures of 6 to 10 degrees, coldest in the north in mostly moderate southerly winds, strong at times on Atlantic coasts.
Sunday: A wet and blustery start to meteorological spring with outbreaks of rain, turning heavy at times. Highest temperatures of 9 to 12 degrees in fresh to strong south to southwest winds, with gales on coasts. For more, visit met.ie.
Salthill – a relegation play-off, or not?
It’s a bit early to proclaim this fixture a relegation head-to-head. Galway have still to host Kilkenny, who themselves have yet to progress beyond four points and may struggle to do so.
Peter Queally’s side were moments away from more or less sealing safety in Nowlan Park last Sunday. But Kilkenny’s late trio of points means that they need to avoid defeat in Salthill. A loss in Galway would put them behind their main rivals to avoid the drop in the head-to-head stakes and needing a result at home to Tipperary in their final game.
It’s still highly conceivable that Tipp could get sucked into this tussle and their previously healthy score difference was hardly helped by the size of their loss against Limerick.
Stephen Bennett hit 0-05 in Kilkenny
Waterford have put up a much better showing in 1A than their opening round display would have suggested. It’s helped that seasoned players have returned, Stephen Bennett chief among them. Reuben Halloran, who’d been carrying 70% or thereabouts of the scoring load, scored just one point, from play, as Bennett nailed three frees.
The Ballygunner crew are back, with Paddy Leavey and Kevin Mahony starting the last day, while Dessie Hutchinson was introduced as a late sub. The latter may progress to the starting line-up this Sunday.
Queally, who was delighted with the bounce-back win over Limerick and then none too impressed with the manner of the victory over Offaly, admitted his frustration afterwards at failing to see out a win against their old foes, when the game appeared to be in their grasp.
Waterford have a famously good record over Galway in championship, winning every encounter bar one – the caveat being that that ‘one’ happened to be by far the most significant match ever played between the teams, the 2017 All-Ireland final.
Even aside from that, Micheál Donoghue has fond memories of this match-up.
It was a home win over Waterford in a league quarter-final – yes, such a phase existed – back in 2017 that kick-started Galway’s triumphant run on all fronts that year. Galway had already missed out on promotion from 1B after a home defeat to Davy Fitzgerald’s Wexford.
Such was the antiquated and ludicrously forgiving league formula at the time, they still progressed to the last-eight of the overall league, where they hosted long-time bogey team Waterford. With 15 minutes remaining, they trailed 2-19 to 1-15 and appeared headed for a dispiriting defeat. Then followed a miraculous comeback, Joe Canning to the fore as they rustled up an unanswered 1-07 to win the game.
They won every game for the rest of the year after that, culminating in a victory over the same opposition in the All-Ireland final.
Conor Whelan returned and scored 1-01 late on against Offaly
As expected, Galway grabbed their first win of the campaign away to Offaly, the 11-point margin roughly in line with what was anticipated.
When Cathal Mannion rifled home the opening goal in the early minutes of the second half, Galway led 1-10 to 0-06 and had a stiff gale at their backs for the rest of the game. A massacre might have been in the offing but Galway were stodgy enough for the remainder of the game.
Offaly had a few goal chances, none of which were taken. Brian Duignan, who gave Cillian Trayers trouble in the second half, hit the side-netting with the best chance. While the result was never in doubt, it needed an injury-time goal from Conor Whelan, making his first appearance of the year, to pad out the scoreline.
Galway had attracted plenty of acclaim for their opening two performances, given the number of young players blooded, with Trayers, Jason Rabbitte and Aaron Niland featuring in every game so far.
Defeats to Waterford and Kilkenny in the next two weeks will surely mean they’ll be continuing their development in 1B in 2027. Though, it’s debatable how much of a penance that really is.
O’Connor v KK in ‘let-it-flow’ derby
The Ben O’Connor Show was paused for a couple of weeks, due to the league’s gap week and Cork’s bye-week following one after another.
The most quotable manager in the sport arrives in Nowlan Park with his team still boasting a 100% record, embracing his stated intention to win every game going.
Oddly, O’Connor’s bracing rhetoric about manliness and his imploring of referees to let the game flow are crusades more typically associated with Kilkenny than Cork in the past couple of decades. His jibes at the assessors ‘up in the stand’ are of course an echo of Brian Cody’s mantra from the Cats’ late 2000s heyday.
Diarmuid Healy is ruled out with a quad issue
The league leaders have a bit of an injury list to contend with as they head for Kilkenny, with Rob Downey, Mark Coleman, Declan Dalton, Diarmuid Healy and Seamus Harnedy all ruled out. Though it’s of no great concerns.
“They’re all only small knocks,” O’Connor told the Cork Evening Echo. “Duds [Healy] is probably the most serious, he has a quad problem, but you’re talking about a couple of weeks for all of them.”
Kilkenny have had more deep-rooted personnel problems in the league thus far with Huw Lawlor and Billy Ryan obviously gone for the duration, while Adrian Mullen and TJ Reid have yet to return.
Their showing in Limerick contained plenty of positives even if their shooting was not one of them. Eoin Cody had a particularly strange afternoon, mixing some fabulous moments in general play with some very poor free-taking.
Cody was taken off placed balls after 25 minutes with Cian Kenny taking over, before the Ballyhale player was re-assigned to them in the second half, whereupon he missed another straightforward one.
Kenny was handed free-taking duties full-stop last Sunday and nailed the winning one at the death.
As Denis Hurley noted in the Echo this week, Cork have won just once in Nowlan Park since 1987, that victory coming in a rather redundant fixture, which went ahead despite Brian Cody’s bemusement.
Having come fifth and sixth in 1A, the match, on 15 March, was played to sort which team entered Group A or Group B in the restructured league for 2020. Since these were mixed ability groups in the same division, it hardly mattered anyway. Cork won what Cody labelled a “futile match” by 2-15 to 1-16.
Elsewhere, Offaly return to the official county ground – if not the capital of hurling territory – in Tullamore to host Limerick in their penultimate game of the league.
Johnny Kelly’s side have mounted a respectable showing in the league, being competitive against both Kilkenny and Waterford, and performing strongly against the wind in the second half against Galway.
Defeat this weekend against a Limerick side who were rampant in Thurles, will formally relegate Offaly back to 1B. Though that was widely expected and hardly the end of the world. It’s been a useful spring for the Faithful.
1B – Clare advancing at their ease, Antrim powered by thickness
Brian Lohan’s side had a bit of a fright in heavy underfoot conditions against Kildare in Newbridge. They trailed by four points early in the second half but upped the gears sufficiently to ensure their victory, with Tony Kelly landing eight points.
A win this weekend against Carlow – who are coming off a chastening loss in Ballymurphy – will formally confirm Clare’s return to 1A, not that ever was in any doubt.
Dublin looked on the brink of missing out on promotion once again as they trailed Wexford by a point with seconds remaining in a very heated encounter in Croke Park. They were down to 13 men by then, with Conor Groarke and Paddy Smyth both gone.
The Wexford bench celebrated with abandon as they won a free in the final minute on their own 50 metre line under the Hogan Stand. Lee Chin, possibly unwisely, went for a score, the ball dropping short into Seán Brennan’s paw. The keeper initially spilled it before re-gathering and kick-starting a last-gasp attack, which ended with Chris Crummey firing over an equaliser.
It had been a tempestuous game, with two red cards, three black cards, a few penalties and a hair-dryer style shouting match between the two managers on the sideline.
Keith Rossiter and Niall Ó Ceallacháin exchanged views on the sideline
The late Crummey score means that Dublin maintain their status as favourites for the second promotion spot, with an identical score difference to Wexford and a more friendly set of fixtures upcoming. That could change if Wexford swing a result against the Banner or if the Dubs stumble.
They rarely stumble against Antrim. Davy Fitzgerald’s side recovered from their pasting in Newbridge with a 13-point win over Carlow last Sunday, which revived their hopes of staying in 1B.
“We actually played well against Wexford. We were OK against Clare. We were poor against Kildare but you’d swear it was the end of the world,” Davy Fitz told the KCLR podcast after the game.
“We actually weren’t that bad in the three games… this wasn’t about Carlow for us today, we were just a bit thick with the stuff we were getting all over the place.”
The Ulster derby against Down in Newry on 21 March will be the critical one for Antrim, with victory there putting them in a strong position. A game at home to last year’s All-Ireland semi-finalists may be more about performance.
It appeared it was going to be a long campaign for Kildare after they only managed two points from play in their opener against Dublin. Since then, they’ve taken wing, with Brian Dowling’s side beating Antrim and giving Clare a fright.
This weekend sees a repeat of last year’s Division 2 final. Down won that easily before their form imploded in the championship. Everything that’s happened since then indicates that Kildare should be favourites in Ballycran.
Watch Allianz League Sunday from 9.35pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on all matches on the RTÉ News App and on rte.ie/sport. Listen to Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1