Because Cork would only be able to accrue a maximum of four points and would lose their head-to-head matches with the top three, their chances of competing in 1A in 2025 are virtually surely gone if they lose.

Perhaps now is Cork’s moment to really shine in the league. This weekend is when anything from the group needs to be revealed.

A squad that was so close to moving on from Munster the previous year will find their push towards the title much more difficult if they lose here. You never know what could have occurred.

However, they didn’t, and it has been more in this Cork group than we’ve seen so far – key players are returning from injury and college duty. I think Pat Ryan will be naming as close to full strength as he possibly can for this tie.

They need this win. I think they will get it too and it could kick-start their year.

Elsewhere, the Banner men travel to the sunny south-east to Chadwick’s Wexford park where they gave Wexford an unmerciful beating last year.

I was at the game and was running out of paper to mark off the scores the Clare lads were putting up. Wexford were decimated with injuries and Clare came really strong that day.

The hosts have a cleaner bill of health this time around but are still without Dee O’Keeffe and Matthew O’Hanlon.

It’s hard getting a handle on Wexford yet. They should have beaten Kilkenny the first day out and were then held to a draw by Offaly – admittedly they were reduced to 13 men.

This is a real litmus test for them against a top team, who will most likely be welcoming back some top players this week too and are looking to cement their place in the top three.

A win for Keith Rossiter’s men would be massive – but I feel it will be a bridge too far.

On the 1B side of the house, there really is only one game that holds any interest for the neutral. That’s in Croke on Saturday night, when Dublin welcome the All-Ireland champions to town.

How will John Kiely look at this fixture?

As a chance to start filtering back in a few more championship guaranteed starters? Or a chance for some guys to say, ‘Hey John I want to be on this team this year’?