Tight turnaround raises stakes in Allianz Hurling League

Ah, the league. The star of spring. Dimmer than its summer cousin perhaps but still one that emits enough light to ease us out of the darkest months.

Like a set of celebrity siblings, the box-office appeal of the hurling and football editions has diverged in recent years.

As football has persisted with a lopsided provincial knockout system – and seems set to still – the lower-division counties in the big-ball game have made the league at least as big a priority as getting hammered by their local All-Ireland contender.

Hurling's revamped tiered round-robin championships (did we really only have two years of them?) have provided much more in the way of evenly-matched battles. The only problem is that the change has highlighted the appetiser status of the spring competition even more – it’s the league before the real league in effect.

The pandemic has also messed with the concept of time and format to the extent that it might be necessary to remind you of the structures.

As you may or may not recall, Division 1 is now a two-group affair of theoretically equal strength, which is certainly an improvement on the previous ludicrous situation that meant fourth place in the old 1B (the 10th best team) got a place in the knockout last eight.

The new format originally had quarter-finals as well, suggesting somebody in Croke Park was on commission for every extra round that could be added in, but the advent of the split-season has mercifully left us with just semi-finals between the top finishers in Group A (Cork, Clare, Offaly, Galway, Limerick, Wexford) and B (Antrim, Dublin, Kilkenny, Laois, Tipperary, Waterford).

Last year that was Galway and Kilkenny, who are now joint holders, having inconveniently avoided meeting in the