The scenes of jubilation in Mullingar on Sunday night after Westmeath’s Leinster final win carried echoes of a summer evening four years ago when they returned home having won the inaugural Tailteann Cup. That success in 2022 was the start of a growing connection with their fans – a connection encapsulated by the news that their round-one All-Ireland Senior Football Championship game at home to Cavan on May 30th had sold out in minutes on Tuesday.A search for the most passionate and engaged mentions of the competition in the national press over the last few years might well reveal more discussion around All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals being shunted around the TV schedules to accommodate Tailteann semi-finals than the football action on the pitch. It is still searching for its niche, whether that’s as a broadcast product or as a sporting contest. But talking to the former Dublin footballer Paul Flynn this week, he made a very perceptive point. Whatever about the merits of the competition in the eyes of the watching public, for teams competing in it the benefits are clear: win the Tailteann Cup and watch your competitiveness level soar.Meath won it in 2023 and beat Dublin, Kerry and Galway in the Sam Maguire last year, while 2024 champions Down knocked Donegal out of Ulster this year. There have been ups and downs along the way, of course. But the Tailteann Cup is a very useful, maybe even a necessary, stepping stone.From the beginning, it was going to be a competition where you got out of it what you put in. There’s been some grousing from counties that had thought themselves free of the Tailteann, only to be roped back into it by virtue of a Division Three or Four team making a provincial final, but it hasn’t done anyone any favours to throw their hat at it.Offaly have an unbroken record of participation in the Tailteann Cup, yet other than one semi-final appearance in 2022, they have really failed to make an impact. Sligo lost a semi-final to Down in extra-time in 2024, but they too should have made a much bigger splash in it than they have. They play Waterford on Sunday after losing inexplicably at home to Tipperary in round one, needing to find the motivation to get the show back on the road.Offaly’s first-round win over Clare in Ennis last week might have been the best result they’ve ever had in the competition – they have no excuse not to have a massive cut off it now after a winter of dispiriting results in Division Two. They’re just two of the counties that should be targeting Tailteann Cups with laser focus.It was refreshing to hear Conor Laverty turn down the chance to have a moan about his Down side’s demotion back down to the Tailteann after Westmeath qualified for the Leinster final this year, despite Down having won the Division Three final earlier in the spring.Ryan McEvoy and Daniel Guinness of Down, a past winner of the Tailteann Cup, celebrate victory over Donegal in the Ulster SFC last month. Photograph: Lorcan Doherty/INPHO As Down showed in Letterkenny, they are easily good enough to be a mid-table Division Two team, with ambitions to keep climbing. Their relegation back to Division Three last year was sloppy and left open the possibility of what happened transpiring.After playing Donegal and Armagh live on television in seven tumultuous, dramatic days in the Ulster championship, drawing Leitrim in the first round might have been seen as a fair climbdown. But they paid Leitrim – and the competition – the ultimate respect by beating them soundly. Down may not like it, but they’re making the most of where they are.They will have a chance to solidify their place in the Sam Maguire next spring by finishing well up the Division Two table ... but why turn up their nose at guaranteeing their participation in the top tier in 2027 in the next few weeks?They are the current favourites, but they have Offaly away on Saturday evening. Have the Offaly footballers got what it takes to ride the coat-tails of their senior hurlers and dig out a result? If they want to make a statement in this competition, now would be a great time to do it.Which brings us to Kildare, last year’s winners. After winning the inaugural trophy in 2022, Westmeath had two brilliant, intensely competitive years in the round-robins, with six stirring performances against elite teams. Kildare were relegated from Division Two in March, but they are going to Galway this weekend on a hiding to nothing. Most people have it as the easiest game in the bracket to predict.Not only is there a gulf between the teams’ respective league and championship form in the last six years, there is also a sinking feeling that Kildare people get when faced with Galway. Their two greatest years in football in the last 80 years have both been ended by them: in the 1998 All-Ireland final and the 2000 All-Ireland semi-final.But it’s also no exaggeration to say that in two group-stage games against Westmeath in 2023 and 2024, in last year’s preliminary quarter-final win over Down and in their one-point defeat to Meath in last year’s quarter-final, Galway have seen the benefits of Tailteann Cup pedigree first hand. Their card will be well and truly marked.One thing’s for sure: walking up the steps of the Hogan Stand in the summertime is never a bad idea. And anyone who’s done it picking up the Tailteann Cup has felt the benefits.