Longford consolidated their place in Division 3 for next year while still keeping their promotion hopes alive with a fine win over Tipperary in Glennon Brothers Pearse Park. For Tipperary, they need results in their next two games if they want to avoid relegation.

A battling 14-man Tipperary were fully deserving of a share of the spoils with Down in their opening game of the Allianz Football League Division 3 at Clonmel Sportsfield.

Power is missing a number of star names for the 2020 campaign.

Limerick produced the first shock of the Championship at Semple Stadium with a remarkable seven-point defeat of Tipperary.

It was rather fitting that Gary Brennan and David Tubridy should deliver the scores which rescued Clare from relegation to Division 3.

A 70th minute Keelan Sexton goal preserved Clare’s Division 2 status and, in the process, condemned both Cork and Tipperary to Division 3 football next spring.

Tipperary knew the implications of defeat here. Injury-ravaged and with only one point from a possible six, not to mention upcoming trips to Armagh and Newbridge, relegation to Division 3 would have been near unavoidable.

Liam McGrath pointed a 40-metre free five minutes into additional-time to gain Tipperary their first point after a hectic finish to an otherwise rather poor tie at Semple Stadium yesterday.

The fare on offer from both side was well short of what will be needed to win promotion but it was Meath who were happiest at the end of this dour Division 2 tie at Páirc Tailteann yesterday.

Mayo 1-19 Tipperary 1-11

When Tipperary and Mayo were pulled first in the qualifier draw my instinctive reaction was that Tipp were still paying a heavy price for taking an eye off the ball against Cork in the Munster semi-final, writes Declan Browne.

Tipperary’s 2016 selector, Tommy Toomey, has challenged the team to spread doubt among the Mayo supporters as much as the players in Thurles on Saturday.

Cork 1-17 Tipperary 0-9 

Star Tipperary forward Conor Sweeney has less than a week to get fit for their Munster semi-final against Cork next Saturday.

The legend of Tipperary’s historic All-Ireland minor football success has multiplied with time.

CAVAN 0-17 TIPPERARY 2-10: Super-sub Conor Madden’s 75th-minute winner broke Tipp hearts and sent spirited Cavan back into the league’s top flight.

It was breaking away from club training and returning with his face muddied and gravel strewn that first alerted Paddy Gumley’s teammates to his closely guarded secret.

Cork 1-16 Tipperary 3-16: That Liam Kearns wasn’t the least bit surprised by this result says plenty about the changed nature of the Cork-Tipperary relationship. In fact, the Premier boss “couldn’t understand” how pundits had tipped Cork beforehand.

The evenings are that bit brighter, all the hurt and disappointment of last year is long forgotten, hope is back in the hearts of supporters in every corner of the country. There is a road to some kind of glory for everyone. This could be the year.

John Fogarty picks out five players who are set to make their mark on the Allianz Football League.

Larry Kavanagh would have bought brother Joe a scoop on Sunday night in appreciation of the latter’s essential contributions to Nemo Rangers’ 16th Munster Club SFC title success.

“I don’t like coming second best either.”

Cork GAA chairman Ger Lane has given tacit approval to an independent company, featuring current and former inter-county players, which is set to begin a round of US fund-raising initiatives aimed at better resourcing the Cork senior footballers and hurlers.

Clare 3-16 Tipperary 0-28: Tipp’s experience was a significant factor in their three-point win over Clare in last Saturday’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final, the reigning All-Ireland champions hitting decisive scores in the closing stages of both halves to land a semi-final berth.

Tipp’s experience was vital in Páirc Uí Chaoimh today as they showed all their nous to edge out Clare in the All-Ireland SHC quarter-final, hitting five points in the closing stages for a three-point win, writes Michael Moynihan.

If Galway progress in a business-like manner, it will augur well for more than a Leinster semi-final, writes PM O’Sullivan.

Met the proverbial — and in this case corporeal — man in the street the day before the league quarter-finals. The man in the street in question is a keen punter, often to be espied going in and out of his local Ladbrokes.

It was 2013 when people began to realise how much of a young man’s game hurling had become. 

Forget the fuss, enjoyable and merited and necessary as it has been, about Wexford for a minute. The outcome of this one will be decided by whether Tipperary want to win or not. The margin of the outcome will be decided by how badly they want to win. As simple and clinical as that.

Tipp rely on Seamus Callanan and John McGrath to create goal chances out of nothing, writes Donal O’Grady.

With Division 1A of the Allianz Hurling reaching its midway point Enda McEvoy assesses the candidates’ progress to date…

The consensus was almost instant a couple of Saturdays ago.

Tipperary 2-17 Kilkenny 3-14: An epic draw which few would dispute that Kilkenny, based on their billing coming into the game, won, even if the result was a just end to a scintillating contest.

Tipperary 0-28 Clare 0-21: “I’m not joking, we’re doing nothing different,” insisted Michael Ryan after this latest piece of evidence that the crown weighs lighter on Tipperary’s heads than previous times.

Sigerson Cup - St Mary’s 2-14 DCU-Dóchas Éireann 2-13 (AET): St Mary’s manager Paddy Tally praised his side after their dramatic upset in beating hosts and favourites DCU-Dóchas Éireann.

For the record, it wasn’t Podge Collins’ decision last month to concentrate on inter-county hurling that marked the end of the dual dodo. When the bionic Aidan Walsh opted for the hurlers in 2015, it confirmed this art of juggling had seen its day. When someone as insanely athletic as Walsh could no longer do it, nobody could.

John Evans has called on the GPA to intervene in Tipperary to end the “nonsense of Steven O’Brien sitting on his backside”.

Tipperary GAA chiefs have been urged to nail down Liam Kearns as the county’s senior football team manager for 2017 — amid loose speculation that his native Kerry could make an approach for his services.

Three things to talk about from the weekend’s action...

If you told Liam Kearns last November when he took on the job of Tipperary manager that he’d guide the county to a first All-Ireland semi-final since 1935 during his maiden season at the helm, he’d probably have laughed at you.

They’re an obstinate bunch, Tipperary football folk. Small in number but big in pretty much everything else — it took three pleas from the PA announcer in Croke Park to convince them to leave the stadium long after the players had retired to their dressing room.

You’d have been hard pressed to envisage a day like this when Tipp were trudging their way through Division 3 of the Allianz Football League.