We have predicted the promotion and relegation contenders for the National Football League (some of them look good still, some may have been blown off course). Now, a couple of days out from the start, we predict how Division 1 of the National Hurling League will look in a couple of months.
Division 1A
1. Tipperary
Tipperary have yet to win the League in its current incarnation, though they did finish top of the 1A standings two years ago. As in 2016, a raider from 1B ended up scooping the League title that year.
Choosing between Tipp and KK in the League is a dangerous business. We side with Tipp on the basis that they host KK rather than the other way around.
The players may also be stung into action by the memory of Tipperary's total failure to build on the All-Ireland title of 2010. Tipp's sense of grandeur demands that such victories can't be one-offs.
2. Kilkenny
In his Second Captains interview of late 2015, Richie Hogan revealed how sensitive these Kilkenny lads can be. The odd stray word from a media outlet can be seized upon. Thus, we would like to stress we are not writing off Kilkenny when we predict they will finish 2nd in the Division 1A standings. We mean no disrespect.
3. Waterford
Very little change from last year. Waterford won the League in 2015 and have no need to bust a gut to do so again. They can now legitimately spy championship success in September.
4. Clare
They are freed from Davy's strictures at last, a liberation that many of their supporters have been hankering after for a couple of seasons. How far we've come from the 2013 All-Ireland final. In the three championship seasons since the All-Ireland was stunningly re-claimed, Clare have only managed one significant win, against an ailing and directionless Limerick side in last year's qualifiers. The managerial duo of Donal Maloney and Gerry O'Connor will have to wean them away from Davy's methods. That may take a period of adjustment. They have the personnel to retain their League status.
5. Cork
They won the Munster Senior Hurling League though good sense forbids us from reading too much into that. They owe their Division 1A status to a strong performance in the relegation playoff in Salthill but also to the GAA administrators who insisted on a relegation playoff in the first place.
The Evening Echo asserts that Kieran Kingston is ready to give youth a go in this League campaign with Mark Coleman, Shane Kingston, Darragh Fitzgibbon and Luke Meade all expected to feature. Cork's main problem remains the chronic lack of success at underage, which is a legacy of the past decade.
We anticipate that the internal chaos in Dublin will rescue them this year.
6. Dublin
The phrase winter of discontent became an indispensable part of any profile of Dublin hurling in recent months. The relationship between Ger Cunningham and the senior players from the Anthony Daly era was always rumoured to be fractious. This was more or less confirmed by Michael Carton's explosive interview on Off the Ball when he unloaded on the "toxic" relationship within the squad.
Cunningham has moved to discard most of the players from the 2013 Leinster winning team and chance his arm with the more malleable youngsters coming through from underage. It's been portrayed as a gamble but the county board have stuck by the manager. It's not as if the Dublin senior hurling team didn't require a renewal.
It's not just older players who have quit the scene. 24-year old star Danny Sutcliffe has absented himself from the panel for the second year running. Conal Keaney, another departing player, told RTE that this was down to a "personality clash" between him and the manager.
Relegated: Dublin
Division 1B
1. Galway
Galway have been installed as better than even money favourites to win Division 1B on their first excursion down there. With their demotion last year, Tipp and KK are now the only teams left who haven't had a spin on 1B.
Last October, manager Micheal Donoghue axed a hardened clique of old stalwarts in Iarla Tannian, David Collins, Andy Smith, Fergal Moore and Cyril Donnellon. As it happens, most of these players were already out of favour in last year's championship. And he ushered in a host of new players, including youngsters from the 2015 All-Ireland winning minor team.
Their form in January was sprightly. They reached the Walsh Cup final but lost narrowly to Kilkenny, who played the last 15 minutes with 14 players.
2. Limerick
Trapped in 1B no matter how hard they strive to extricate themselves. Limerick's league misfortune is a source of hilarity in some quarters.
They topped the old 8-team Division 2 in 2011 only for the GAA to abruptly change the format, moving to two tables of six. Since the current structure has been instituted, Limerick have finished 2nd in 1B for every year - bar one.
Unfortunately, the one year they topped the 1B standings was also the final year that the GAA insisted on a Division 1B final. Limerick were then beaten by 1B runners-up Dublin.
Manager John Kiely is playing down their chances of promotion. "The concept of promotion out of the division is not our radar at the moment," he said.
For their crucial trip to Wexford this weekend, they are bothered by injuries to Kevin Downes and Shane Dowling but Wexford have far from a clean bill of health. We give Limerick a slight nod but not in the race for promotion.
3. Wexford
The most significant match-up this weekend is Wexford's home tie with Limerick. The arrival of Davy Fitzgerald in Wexford has generated national interest in the county, which hasn't always been in there in recent years.
Like Limerick, they have a promising underage crop. They won three Leinster U21 titles in a row between 2013 and 2015, without getting their hands on the Cross of Cashel once.
However, the visit of Limerick may have come at the wrong time, with the guts of Davy's side decimated with injuries. Liam Óg McGovern, Andrew Shore and Shane Tompkins are all absent while Jack Guiney and Conor McDonald are both doubtful.
If they lose on Sunday, they will likely slip behind Limerick in the pecking order.
4. Offaly
After a brief moment of panic following the humiliation against Westmeath, Offaly steadied the ship enough to work their way into a Leinster semi-final. Not exactly party-time but they'd have taken that in the bleak aftermath of the Cusack Park disaster.
Their display against Galway was credible even if the game was settled as a contest immediately after half-time. They remain vulnerable to those lower down the pecking order and only pipped Kildare by a point in the Walsh Cup recently. They have hot favourites Galway first up this Sunday.
5. Kerry
Kerry did themselves justice in their first outing in 1B last year, beating both Laois and Offaly. After the opening series of round robin games, they looked likely to escape to the knockout stages.
At present, they appear in ruder health than a Laois squad who have hit by a spate of retirements.
6. Laois
Their brief burst of quasi-respectability may well be drawing to a close. The highlights of Laois's incursion into the hurling mainstream was their destruction of Offaly in 2015 and their narrow and vaguely surreal two-point loss to Galway in 2014.
As it is, only three of the side that won promotion to Division 1 in 2013 remain with the team - Matthew Whelan, Cahir Healy and Picky Maher. The rest of the squad are woefully inexperienced.
Cheddar Plunkett is gone too, taking the regression of 2016 as his cue to depart. Eamonn Kelly terminated his occasionally tempestuous spell with Offaly and headed for Laois.
The good news is that it's very difficult to get relegated from Division 1 in hurling.
Quarter-Finals
(We will speed through the rest of the competition... All idle speculation of course)
Tipperary to beat Offaly - (15 point margin)
Kilkenny to beat Wexford - (11 point margin)
Waterford to beat Limerick - (7 point margin)
Galway to beat Clare - (5 point margin)
Semi-finals
Galway to beat Tipperary - (3 point margin)
We fancy Galway to follow in the footsteps of their 1B champion brethren and give the League a good rattle this year. It is more incumbent on them to go full throttle this year, particularly as they are testing so many youngsters. They are also not worried about the club championship distractions.
Kilkenny to beat Waterford - (2 point margin)
The new Walsh Cup champions will maintain their winning habit against Waterford.
Final
Kilkenny to beat Galway - (3 point margin)
Once more, we anticipate KK's recent stranglehold on the fixture to continue. The last time Kilkenny began the new year without Liam McCarthy tucked away in their trophy cabinet, they went on to win the National League. We anticipate something similar this time around.
This will finish much as the recent Walsh Cup game finished, albeit in front of a bigger crowd and a TV audience.
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