A tiered championship remains a viable option

If you turned on the heat in your home last Thursday evening it may have had as much to do with the football championship draw you were watching as the drop in temperature.

There is little warmth in provincial draws and when Connacht and Munster amounted to pretty much the same as last year it amounted to a snooze.

Ulster, at least, offers an element of unpredictability even if Tyrone are strongly fancied to do the three-in-a-row. Leinster, meanwhile, reads as the fait accompli it has been the past five years. Their council provide quarter-final byes to the four semi-finalists from the previous season but ascribing parity to Kildare, Meath, and Westmeath alongside Dublin is artificial. Some have suggested an open draw in Leinster but it would be far healthier for the province to give counties a running start via a round-robin series before they face Dublin.