The pressure is on teams to win their opening game as the County Senior Football Championship gets underway this weekend.
The delay due to Covid-19 has resulted in a number of changes to the format with just the top team in each of the four groups progressing to the semi-final.
Analyst Shane Stapleton says Friday nights clash between Loughmore – Castleiney and Ballyporeen in Group 1 is a case in point.
“This is probably the one match they didn’t want to see coming up – to face each other first.”
“It’s a difficult one – if you could find your feet with a win or two and then see how you’re fixed towards the end of the competition it might be a bit easier.”
“This is going to be a titanic struggle and probably a winner takes all – no disrespect to Ardfinnan and Moyne the other two teams in the group.”
“This is a whole new game-plan and whoever is first out of the blocks is going to have a huge advantage because it’s going to be very, very hard to claw it back.”