Division 2 'Super Saturday' scheduled for next year's National Football League

League and Championship promotion and relegation will be on the line on the final day in Division 2

The GAA have built a ‘Super Saturday’ into next year’s Allianz Football League programme.

Croke Park announced their master fixtures plan yesterday with the pivotal Division 2 group set to come under the spotlight on a huge day for the eight counties involved.

Not only will relegation and promotion be on the line, but All-Ireland Championship spots will be up for grabs.

All four Division 2 games will take place under lights on Saturday, March 23, throwing in at 7pm.

They are Cavan (h) v Fermanagh, Cork (h) v Armagh, Donegal (h) v Meath and Kildare (h) v Louth.

The remaining ties in Division 1, 3 and 4 will all be down for decision the following day.

New Donegal boss Jim McGuinness will be particularly keen to get out of Division 2 and secure an All-Ireland spot with a tough Ulster Championship quarter-final opener against back-to-back champions Derry.

Under the new All-Ireland Championship format the eight provincial finalists are the top eight seeds in the four group structure.

The other eight sides are made up of the next seven highest placed teams in the National League and Tailteann Cup champions Meath.

Last year Meath finished sixth in Division 2, but after failing to make the Leinster final, dropped into the Tailteann Cup, while 5th placed Kildare qualified for the All-Ireland series.

In recent years the entire final round of football league games across the four divisions took place on a Sunday afternoon.

The Division 2 move would not have been possible if Kildare were playing at their home venue, St. Conleth’s Park.

But with ongoing works at the Newbridge ground the lily whites have nominated Netwatch Cullen Park, which has floodlights, for their home games.

Meanwhile, a new regulation, which could see some of the National League finals not played has been added to deal with adverse weather conditions and the tight fixture calendar.

Two ‘break weeks’ are built into the National Football League (February 10/11 and March 9/10).

But if bad weather affected fixtures in mid to late March, the finals weekend of March 30/31 could see outstanding group fixtures played off instead.

This is because final league placings in Divisions 1, 2 and 3 feed into Championship status.

It is possible that a later Championship fixture could double up as a League final if the same pairings were thrown up.

This happened during covid with the 2020 Limerick/Clare Munster quarter-final doubling up as the League final, which wasn't played earlier in the year due to the pandemic.

On a strange evening in Thurles Declan Hannon lifted the league title for the Treaty men with no spectators in attendance as Limerick qualified for the Munster semi-final.

The football Championship begins on the first weekend of April, a week after the league finals.

Last year Mayo were beaten by Roscommon in the Connacht quarter-final a week after defeating Galway in the Division 1 final at Croke Park.

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