In Ulster, two teams from Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone will play in the preliminary round as Donegal loook to make it a hat-trick of provincial titles in 2026
With teams returning to collective pre-season training last week, the preparations for the 2026 season are officially underway and, later tonight, counties up and down the country will learn who they’ll face in the provincial series.
The draws for the provincial football championships are taking place much later than usual in order to give the various provincial club championships as much coverage as possible.
In a new departure, the draws will also be streamed live having taken place on RTÉ Radio 1 in recent years.
As ever, a number of draws are subject to various permutations.
In Ulster, the four teams who’ve contested the preliminary round in 2024 and 2025 are exempt from the first round in 2026. That means two from Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone will face off in this year’s preliminary round.
In Munster, a controversial seeing system has been deferred until 2027 meaning Kerry and Cork can be on the same side of the provincial draw, as has been the case in each of the last two campaigns.
Much of the attention will focus on Leinster with Ger Brennan taking over as Dublin boss having led Louth to provincial glory this season. The Wee County subsequently appointed Gavin Devlin to the role.
Tailteann Cup winners Kildare are assured of their place in the Sam Maguire Cup in 2026 and they’ll be seeded as quarter-finalists along with Louth, Dublin and Meath.
Roscommon will travel to the Bronx to face New York in the Connacht preliminary round on April 12 with Mayo taking on London in Ruislip the same weekend.
Once the provincial championships are wrapped up, there’ll be a new format for the Sam Maguire and Tailteann Cups.
The group stages have been replaced with a new structure identical to that already used in Down and Derry. The double-elimination system basically affords teams two chances to progress to the quarter-finals.
The round one winners progress to round two with the winners of that round going through to the last eight.
The round one losers play-off against each other with the losers facing the round two losers in round three. The round three winners play the round two winners in the quarter-finals.
No draws will be required for the Leinster and Munster Senior Hurling Championships with the fixtures rotating year-on-year while the fixtures for the Joe McDonagh, Christy Ring, Nickey Rackard and Lory Meagher Cups were finalised last week.
The provincial football draws will take place from 7pm tonight with the event streamed live from Croke Park via GAA+ and on the GAA’s official channels or watch via this link.
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