Primetime will yield to hurling but Down and Sligo deliver parting shot
Simon Fingleton of Laois in action against Patrick McBride of Antrim during their Tailteann Cup semi-final. Photo: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
We came to bury the Tailteann Cup semi-finals as primetime entities, to oversee an eviction order from the Sunday afternoon slots that have felt as precious all week as the Aer Lingus landing slots in Heathrow Airport.
Having banished the All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals to obscure Saturday lunchtime throw-in times and consigned almost everything else in the football championship into a Saturday evening crush, the penultimate stages of the much maligned second tier felt like they were on trial, guilty until proven innocent.
