A spring for football to emerge from the shadows

Beautifully balanced, Gaelic football’s best structured competition commences tomorrow evening.

The Allianz Football League has proven to be not just a gauge of what’s to come - seven of last year’s Division 1 teams reached the Super 8, six of the last 10 Division 1 winners and two runners-up have gone on to become All-Ireland champions - but routinely the most accurate form of ranking teams since it returned to the four divisional format 11 years ago.