WHEN the GAA schedule planners put their heads together last year to try and come up with a spring schedule that fitted around the national leagues, college competitions, the free month of April and an appropriate lead in time the championships etc., they hardly thought that March would be their issue weather wise.

With the earlier start for the leagues, January was likely the time they were sweating on as regards postponements. Not the case now.

With the country gripped by a freeze, these will be fraught times in Croke Park.

Right now the plans for the hurling leagues is for games every weekend until the finals on Saturday March 24th, thus leaving April free for club activity.

The footballers have a spare week to play with but that’s all.

So it will be fingers crossed in HQ.

Worst case scenario there will be games lost this weekend and perhaps the hurling league goes into the last weekend in March, along with the possibility of midweek matches under lights. Best case scenario they get away with it!

We’re more than past the halfway mark of the leagues in both codes and so far so good. Attendances haven’t plummeted, interest in the games remains high and counties are still taking the league as seriously as in previous years.

On the hurling front, relegation still matters to managers judging by the response they’ve been seeking from squads. We will shortly find out just how much winning the league counts for.

A couple of years ago the biggest game of the weekend would have been between Limerick and Galway in Pearse Stadium, a winner take all contest to see who gets released from Division 1B. But it hardly seems as important anymore, with Galway using the easier road as a platform for bigger things last year.

If anything, their spell in the lower division has been a help rather than a hindrance.

Last year they won the league and All-Ireland, losing only one competitive match (to Wexford), albeit the one that kept them in the second flight.

Strangely enough that loss to Davy Fitzgerald’s side was probably the making of the Tribesmen in 2017. Having lost at home and seen their promotion hopes go up in smoke, Galway doubled down. The league competition became the be all and end all, they won it, and gave Tipp quite the hammering in the final. They were on a roll and they just kept going.

So Micheal O’Donoghue will feel that a year or two in Division 1B hasn’t hurt his squad one bit. And ask yourself a question – these past six weeks, has there been a word a about Galway?

There hasn’t. Instead the headlights have been on Brian Cody’s supposed ‘crisis’, Derek McGrath’s woes, Davy’s rebirth, Clare’s unbeaten run, the pitches in Pairc Uí Chaoimh and Walsh Park etc.

There is something to be said for a quiet life in 1B!

Weather permitting, this weekend will be the first time we see Galway live on our TV screens. The same is true of Limerick. Two teams who will be major players later this summer and they’ve been hiding in plain sight in 1B.

On Sunday they’ll finally get a match of consequence. Regardless of the result, they will both be able to test themselves against top flight opposition in the quarter-finals and see if they are up to the pace.

Limerick might be more tuned in and they’re the tip to finally escape the second tier.

The last round of fixtures in 1A offer more fascination. The Cats are home to neighbours Wexford, probably minus Lee Chin. That looks like a home win for Cody’s charges and not only survival, but a quarter final place. A couple of weeks ago the obit writers had Kilkenny in crisis, if Cody isn’t careful now they could win the league!

Cork and Waterford look bound for the relegation play-off, even if the Deise beat Clare on Sunday in the aforementioned Walsh Park. A year in the nether regions won’t bother Derek McGrath or John Meyler too much, both have bigger fish to fry come May and June.

FOOTBALL

Now that Kerry have lost two games in a row, Eamon Fitzmaurice will be hearing the whispers that engulfed Kilkenny in the opening fortnight of the league. Those conversations are even more laughable. Twelve months ago the Kingdom won the national league and beat Dublin to do it. Where did that get them? No Sam Maguire for starters.

There is no shortage of footballers in Kerry, whatever they want out of this league they will get. Come the summer they will be in the Super 8s and they will be in the only conversation that counts, the one about the destination of Sam Maguire. So stop reading too deeply into their foibles this spring.

If there is much to take from what has been happening in the top division it might be Galway’s revival and Monaghan’s tenacity. The rest are reverting to type. Kildare might be relegation candidates but they aren’t in crisis either – they’ve been competitive in everything except the second half against Dublin.

The same is true of Tyrone, Donegal and Mayo who are all one defeat away from cliches like ‘trapdoor’.

The real takeaway from the top eight is the stat that Galway have conceded the least of all the teams. That’s a sign that they are changing the way they play football, joining in with the rest of the country in getting men behind the ball. It was inevitable, it had to happen that the last of the freewheeling top counties would bow to the inevitable.

Dublin and Kerry in Croke Park is top billing this weekend as it should be, but Galway and Monaghan could take watching too.

A lot of eyes will also be tuned to Division 2, where after four games, six counties still harbour genuine promotion hopes. That’s where the dogfights are and Cavan can make huge strides towards a quick return to Division 1 with a win at home to Down on Saturday night.

You have to be of a certain age to remember when Cavan strode the GAA fields like the giants they were of Ulster and All-Ireland football. From all the ice and snow we have been promised this week, let’s hope they are the county to come in from the cold.