GAA president Jarlath Burns enthused by 'most open' Tailteann Cup

The third season of the Tailteann Cup was launched at Croke Park today, with GAA president Jarlath Burns describing it as "the most open it has been".

The Armagh native was at GAA headquarters to launch the 2024 second-tier series, which starts this weekend, with the round-robin phase concluding on 1/2 June.

The lower 16 teams following the conclusion of this year’s Allianz Football League (including Down after Clare reached the Munster SFC final) will be joined by New York at the preliminary quarter-final stage with only the three best third-placed teams making the knock-out stages.

Burns believes the competition is wide open.

"I would say this year is the most open we have had," he told RTE Sport.

"Kildare and Down will be the favourites but Kildare haven’t distinguished themselves in league or championship this year and Down were beaten by Westmeath in the Division 3 league final recently so many teams will believe they can win this cup.

"And it is a great competition to win as teams make incremental progress from there."

The final will be held at Croke Park on Saturday 13 July as a curtain raiser to an All-Ireland senior semi-final and will be shown live on RTÉ.

Before that the semi-finals will be held at Croke Park on 23 June and will also be both shown live on RTÉ.

The eventual champions will be guaranteed Sam Maguire Cup football in 2025.

A Tailteann Cup Team of the Year will be selected and honoured later this year as part of the annual GAA awards season and both finalists will receive a holiday fund support grant from Croke Park.

"The Tailteann Cup is there because counties wanted it. You see the effort they put in and how it has helped Westmeath"

Several of the players from the 16 counties at present at Croker today would