Ulster's hopefuls set for the road to Clones

The 2026 Ulster Senior Football Championship final takes place at St Tiernach's Park in Clones on 17 May [Getty Images] Identifying the start of summer can be rather arbitrary - does it begin when the clocks change? Is it 1 June? Or is it when the GAA Championships begin?

If you maintain it's the latter, then dust off the sunglasses as we have arrived. Across the four provinces, the football championships throw-in and in Ulster, it all begins with a bang as Armagh host Tyrone in a mouth-watering preliminary round tie at the Athletic Grounds on Sunday [16:15 BST] - a game you can watch live on the BBC. Already this year, we've had some thrilling action in the league, but it's time to step it up a notch as the race for the Anglo Celt Cup begins.

There is so much to ponder as to what the next five weeks will bring, so let's take a look at the runners and riders. Antrim Ryan McQuillan has established himself as one of Antrim's top attackers [Getty Images] The lowest ranked of the nine coming into the championship, Antrim missed out on promotion from Division Four in the league. Much of that was to do with a horrendous start, losing their opening three games against Carlow, Tipperary and Longford, but a corner was turned by winning their remaining four games - how they must rue that slow start now.

Mark Doran is in his first season in charge of the Saffrons and felt the league came just a few weeks too soon for his squad which took a while to settle, while Patrick McBride stepped away after the defeat by Tipperary. His influence and leadership will be missed on top of the two-point ability he displayed in last year's Ulster SFC defeat by Armagh when the Saffrons led at the break against the then All-Ireland champions, and now it's up to Adam Loughran, Ryan McQuillan, Dominic McEnhill, Niall Burns and Pat Shivers to lead the charge. This year, they travel to Celtic Park on 18 April [17:00] to face a Derry side which seems to have rediscovered its mojo, but if Antrim need the inside track on the Oak Leafers, their manager ought to have that in spades having managed Slaughtneil last year.