This weekend sees the championships start in earnest and among all the previews and predictions, there are a few things that can be taken for granted, and we are not talking about Kerry or Kilkenny making it to an All-Ireland final.

1. There will be a square ball decision made that slow motion television replays will show is incorrect. The new definition of the square ball rule is now in place but that won't change the fact that human error will always occur and TV cameras will pick it up.

2. The opening rounds of the championship will be deemed of a poor standard. This is because the default setting of a pundit is negativity - that's what gets them noticed. So prepare yourself for a couple of weeks doom and gloom, before our favourite pundits loosen up.

3. Attendances will be down again and there will be much gnashing of teeth and complaining about the cost of tickets. Then Dublin footballers will then enter the championship with a huge Croke Park crowd and everybody will forget about the problem.

(We will digress for a moment and argue that the real reason people are not going to games is the cost of travel. It's hard to see how you can blame the GAA for this unless you think they should be organising petrol vouchers for fans.)

4. Some county will pull off a shock win. They will then be fêted as a beacon for all counties that have struggled over the years. Said county will then lose in the next round and history will be revised, with the big gun they knocked out previously being described as 'no good this year anyway'.

5. The GAA will be given out to for 'not promoting the championship'. This will be said by some former star now making a few euro on the side as a pundit, who wouldn't know what marketing was if they were sitting in the middle of a MBS course in the Michael Smurfit School of Business. We've knocked them in the past but the GAA have got off their backside this year and made a genuine effort at promotion.

6. What we like to call the 'MJ Tierney effect' will ensure that a player with their wit about them will realise that if they say something controversial on twitter, it will get them noticed. So expect a few choice tweets that will have managers and administrators pulling their hair out.

7. Nobody can predict the minor championships before they start as teams tipped to do well always let you down. The hottest of favourites can never be backed with certainty because when you put a bunch of 17-year-olds in front of a huge crowd in a pressure situation, anything can happen.

8. A referee who correctly sends a player off will be accused of 'ruining the game'. This fact is doubly applicable in hurling, where apparently nobody should ever be sent off in a championship match, no matter what happens.

9.Regularly the teams announced by managers earlier in the week will bear little resemblance to the side that actually lines out that weekend. There will be plenty of personnel changes and positional switches aplenty. The only people that managers are fooling are supporters.

10. A player will appeal a suspension, whether it is deserved or not, and a member of the player's county board will say it is a disgrace the way their man has been treated. The famous line - 'nobody should miss a championship match for that' - will be trotted out. That same official will then hand down suspensions within their own county and vigorously fight any club that tries to appeal them. Tweet

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