Round 1 qualifiers - The championship stakes are raised

Is this the weekend where the football season truly kicks into gear?

Derry followers will perhaps take great umbrage at such a statement, while Galway players and management are rightly basking in their first piece of silverware under the guidance of Paraic Joyce.

It is also not to undermine the importance of the Tailteann Cup, with Pat Spillane this week lauding the competition on the RTÉ GAA podcast.

But, in the overall scheme of things in the race for Sam Maguire – notwithstanding the fact that there are teams still involved who aren't genuinely harbouring All-Ireland ambitions – truly takes shape with the arrival of knock-out football and the first round of the qualifiers.

While Derry, Kerry, Dublin and Galway can sit back and await their quarter-final fate, and the quartet of Limerick, Roscommon, Kildare and Donegal lick their lips after provincial defeats and look to re-group, this weekend will see four sides head for the exit door.

Ulster neighbours, qualifier foes

Tyrone and Armagh would probably have preferred to keep their sparring confined to Ulster jousts, though it is five years since they last crossed paths in championship football when the Red Hand crushed Kieran McGeeney’s side by 18 points in an All-Ireland quarter-final.

The Orchard County have struggled in this fixture – their 2014 qualifier win their sole championship success in the last five meetings between the teams – but home advantage could be crucial in their bid to send the All-Ireland champions packing.

The dramatic scenes from their league encounter this year, when referee David Gough dismissed four Tyrone players and one from Armagh for contributing to a melee, an infraction that has hardly been considered by officials since, is another sub-plot to