The football may have started up at club level last weekend but it’s in hurling that Championship action is set to get underway first in the county, with two games down for decision this coming Saturday evening.

Champions Tooreen open their defence of the TJ Tyrell Cup when they face Castlebar Mitchels, in what will be a repeat of last year’s county final. That game throws in at Castlebar at 7.30pm on Saturday.

At the same time over the road in Westport, Ballyhaunis – who suffered a shock one-point defeat to Castlebar in last year’s semi-final – take on Westport.

I’ve no idea what the format is for this Championship but as these two ties haven’t been flagged as semi-finals I presume there must be some kind of round-robin element to it. If anyone can shed some light on this that would be great.

There’s plenty of football on this weekend too, by the way, with several Michael Walsh League games down for decision. You’ll find the full list of Senior fixtures here, the Intermediate ones here and the Junior ties here.

A quick reminder for Cáirde Mhaigheo members about applying for tickets for Rounds 1 and 2 of the club Championship, which I wrote about yesterday. If you want to put your name down for tickets you need to do so by 6pm tomorrow. Full details on that are here.

Back to the hurling to finish up. The Covid-19 attendance limits apply to both of the Championship games on Saturday evening and so both matches are all ticket affairs. If you want to go to either game then you need to get in touch with one of the participating clubs and they should be able to sort you out for tickets.