And then there were 12!
Monday morning you will be able to hear the draw for the preliminary quarter-finals in the All-Ireland SFC on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland at 8.35am, but who is involved?
Before that, let’s look at the teams that won’t be. Westmeath, Cavan, Clare and Meath are all out of the championship having all lost their three games and finishing bottom of their tables.
At the other end of each league, Armagh, Dublin, Donegal and Kerry are straight into the quarter-finals having topped their respective groups. It means the players involved in those squads can put the feet up next weekend.
The eight teams in between are where it gets interesting.
Galway, Mayo, Tyrone and Louth finished second in their groups and it means that they have a home preliminary quarter-final to look forward to.
Derry, Roscommon, Cork and Monaghan ended up third in their groups, so they’ll be away next weekend.
The only caveats ahead of tomorrow’s draw are that there can’t be repeat provincial final pairings, while the GAA is also looking to avoid games that happened in the groups “where possible”.
As such, the possible draws tomorrow are as follows:
Galway v Roscommon, Cork or Monaghan
Mayo v Derry, Cork or Monaghan
Tyrone v Derry, Roscommon or Monaghan
Louth v Derry, Roscommon or Cork
