It’s championship launch season so, in that spirit, it’s time to crack the bottle of bubbly across the bow of this year’s championship prediction mini-league and let it slide of the slipway and into the sea.

The cup for this tournament wintered in our gaff, where the young lad polished his silverware on a regular basis during those long, dark nights that are now, thankfully, once more behind us. He’s completed his spring training since then and so is fit and ready for the fray once again, looking to seal back-to-back prediction titles. Are you up for the fight? If so, here’s what you need to do to join in the fun:

• Log in (or register, if you haven’t yet done so) at facetheball.com.
• Under the ‘Competitions’ heading on the left-hand side click on the “GAA Football” tab and then join the ‘2017 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship’ competition and click to enter this.
• This takes you to the area where you make your weekly predictions and there are also a number of tabs on the panel on the left-hand side of the screen. Click the “Join Mini League” option, which will prompt you to enter the mini-league’s ID code.
• The code you need to enter is 89I3CIfYDE7H (it’s probably easiest just to copy and paste this directly from here).
• Click “Join” and that’s you in.

The deadline for the first set of predictions in this year’s competition is 7pm on Saturday 20th May so you’ve plenty of time yet to do the needful. Like all jobs, though, best do it sooner rather than later.

I hereby declare this year’s championship prediction mini-league competition open. The very best of luck to all who sail in her.