Did we ever think we’d see the day when a meeting of Liverpool and Real Madrid pushed the Munster senior football final to a Saturday afternoon setting?

While last weekend was a busy one across the sporting spectrum, with the finale of the Premier League and the PGA Championship vying for attention along with the Spanish Grand Prix and the culmination of the provincial hurling round-robins, there’s no shortage of action this Saturday and Sunday, either.

As well as the Munster and Leinster football finals, RTÉ have the rights to the Champions League final, which kicks off at 8pm on Saturday night.

Though the broadcaster struggles to produce good comedy and doesn’t have enough music output, it knows better than to cannibalise its sporting audience.

So it is that there is no 7pm GAA game on Saturday, with Kerry and Limerick’s match in Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney beginning at 3pm while Dublin take on Kildare in the Leinster decider at 5pm.

Unfortunately, the likelihood is that, regardless of start time, neither game is expected to be particularly competitive, with Dublin rated at 1/7 with the bookmakers while Kerry are 1/50.

Of course, given that the provincial championships are no longer fully fit for purpose, Limerick can’t – and hopefully won’t – frame success on the basis of one game where they are rank outsiders.

Good year

The Shannonsiders have had a very good year so far, earning promotion to Division 2 of the Allianz Football League and then beating Clare on penalties and Tipperary to make the final. It’s the first time since 1934 that the county have been in both Munster deciders in the same year.

The match-up recalls the deciders of 2003, 2004 and 2010, with Limerick taking Kerry to a replay in the middle one of those and almost snatching victory in Killarney in the last one, just falling to a late Kerry surge.

On the surface, Kildare seem better-equipped to trouble a Dublin team that had a poor league

That team also narrowly lost out to Cork in the 2009 final, after which talismanic midfielder John Galvin memorably told the assembled journalists that he was “s**t-sick of moral victories” but, unfortunately for Limerick, they were as close as they got to the Munster Cup.

With the best will in the world, it’s unlikely that they will claim it on Saturday, either, but the key thing is for them to go into the qualifiers and a chance of a place in the All-Ireland quarter-finals with some belief and something to build on.

The way the draw for the first round of qualifiers has panned out (more of which next week, ahead of those games) means that there will be some winnable ties for the defeated provincial finalists.

On the surface, Kildare seem better-equipped to trouble a Dublin team that had a poor league but still swatted Wexford and Meath aside without too many problems.

That said, the Lilywhites have not beaten their neighbours in the championship since 2000 and it would be a surprise if that run was to end.

Their U20s did beat Dublin in that Leinster final but Dublin prevailed when the counties met in the minor final.

Other games

Sunday will see the other two provincial championships wrapped up and there would appear to be a greater likelihood of the possibility of extra time and penalties.

While Mayo won the two pandemic-affected Connacht titles, the four finals prior to that were contested by Galway and Roscommon, each coming out on top twice.

Pearse Stadium is the venue on Sunday at 1.45pm, with the sides having already met in the Division 2 league final this year.

Roscommon won that by a point in Croke Park after the sides had each won six of their seven matches and a similarly close outcome should be in store in Salthill.

Then, at 4pm in St Tiernach’s Park in Clones, Derry and Donegal do battle for Ulster supremacy.

It’s the first time since 2011 that Derry have made the final and they are seeking to bridge a victory gap that dates back to 1998, but Rory Gallagher’s side have been very impressive in seeing off All-Ireland champions Tyrone and then Monaghan to get to this stage.

Donegal, playing in their fourth final in five years, will represent a tough test again and there could be very little between the sides.

Final for Leinster

Also on Saturday is the Heineken Champions Cup final but, as that is being shown live on BT Sport rather than RTÉ, the 4.45pm kick-off time is almost directly up against Dublin and Kildare.

Will many members of Leinster’s 12-County Army be faced with a tough watching decision?

Often, you’d be forgiven for thinking that sportswriters have no imagination, especially given the prevalence of phrases like, “It’s a game of two halves” and “You couldn’t have written a script like this!” when something dramatic happens .

When you consider films like Memento, Interstellar or Inception, it’s not that difficult to conceive of a last-minute winner or a player scoring against his former team.

The fact that Leinster’s opponents in Marseille’s Stade Vélodrome on Saturday are Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle can be filed under the ‘couldn’t write it’ heading, but it’s hardly that surprising – the French side beat Leinster in last year’s semi-final and this season has confirmed their place in the top tier in European rugby.

Leinster are trying to ignore the identity of the opposition head coach – Leo Cullen said in a press conference last week that he wouldn’t be paying much attention to what O’Gara said in the media – but it does add a level of intrigue and of course an extra reason for Munster fans to shout against their rivals.

How to watch that and the football? We’ll leave that up to you.

Irish boxers take gold

A few weeks back, we focused on Katie Taylor and how her biggest legacy was bringing women’s boxing to the mainstream in Ireland.

To underline that, the wins for Lisa O’Rourke and Amy Broadhurst in the Women’s World Boxing Championships in Turkey showed that the conveyor belt remains rolling and both will now look to continue their progress towards the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

O’Rourke is a talented footballer with Roscommon so there may be a decision to make on that front, but it’s a headache of the enjoyable kind.