No-frills draw across Ireland as Northampton tours GAA headquarters – The Irish Times

The All-Ireland Championship group stage draw was, writes Gordon Manning, “a simple, meat and potatoes affair”; if you want “fuss and pageantry” in Croke Park, “you’ll have to wait until Taylor Swift.” But it created a conundrum or two for some of the contenders, including Galway and Mayo: the simple fact is that whoever loses their final match in Connacht on Sunday will enter “a nicer group”. What about Dublin and Kerry? They have been “left at the top of a green slope with a gentle downhill route to the All-Ireland quarter-finals”. And that is “just what they will need to bounce back after such tough provincial campaigns,” Gordon writes, tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Seán Moran wonders why the draw was not “postponed until the provincial campaigns were over”, given that there has been talk that teams that reach the final could “decide to lose”. The result is that “the thread connecting the provincial football championships to the All-Ireland has been frayed to the point of breaking.”

Darragh Ó Sé walks around the frame and gives us his opinion on each of the runners and cyclists, noting, somewhat ominously, that Dublin are “pulling away, doing their thing… they look better than last year and their youngsters We’re not boys anymore.” Despite their defeat to Donegal, he’s not ruling Derry out of the race just yet, and neither, it must be said, is Derry defender Eoin McEvoy, who talks to Gordon about his prospects. county.

In rugby, Gordon D’Arcy reckons Leinster’s prospects of beating Northampton in Saturday’s Champions Cup semi-final are very, very good. Their “combination of experience, ambition and desire, tinged with pain or recent failures, should bring them once again to the threshold of a fifth star,” he writes. Ross Byrne’s form since returning from injury in February has played a big part in his progress, Gerry Thornley spoke to the outlet ahead of the big game.

Brian O’Connor concludes the first day of the Punchestown festival, and JJ Slevin “underlines his pedigree in big racing with a spectacular last-gasp success at Banbridge in the Champion Chase.” And he looks ahead to today’s main event, with Galopin Des Champs “on the brink of a magnificent Gold Cup ‘Triple Crown’.”

And Ian O’Riordan hears from Mia Griffin, who is on a unique Olympic journey: the Kilkenny women began their sporting lives playing camogie for their county, but are now part of the Irish track cycling team that booked their place in Paris on last month.

Watch TV: RTÉ 2 has more coverage of the Punchestown Festival this afternoon (3.30), while tonight TG4 has the Munster under-20 football final between Cork and Kerry (7.30). And Virgin Two and TNT Sports bring the first leg of the Champions League semi-final between Borussia Dortmund and PSG (8.0).