Plenty at stake for rivals in Omagh pressure cooker

It has been a slow burn so far but the championship should ratchet up in intensity this week.

For the past month, the hurling has been hogging most of the limelight, specifically Munster hurling. I was on radio duty in Croke Park last Sunday and I think, all told, we got about six minutes of airtime, about the length of a Roscommon attack, as Marty breathlessly kept us informed of events in Limerick.

Every inter-county team in the country is togging this weekend and Round 2 provides us with plenty of derby games - Cork-Kerry in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Donegal-Derry in Ballybofey, Kildare-Dublin in Nowlan Park and the Rossies against Sligo in Hyde Park.

Most enticing of all is the Group 2 collision of Tyrone and Armagh in Healy Park, with serious question marks hovering over both teams.

It certainly feels like there's a lot at stake here. Both teams need a win badly, from a psychological standpoint as much as from the perspective of the overall competition. As a result, I suspect we'll see real white-knuckle championship fare in Omagh.

Since the Ulster final loss, you're hearing rumblings of discontent here and there about Kieran McGeeney's management from small sections of the Armagh support.

In blunt terms, this is to be expected. If you're at the helm for eight or nine years, and you've won nothing, people are going to start asking questions.

I know for a fact that if I was with Mayo for as long as I was and we had nothing to show for it, do you think James Horan or Stephen Rochford would have been given as much time as they had? I don't think so.

Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly only had one year and yet they brought us to a Connacht title and we were on the cusp of beating Dublin in that year's semi-final - there's no need to get deep