Mostly Hurling:Former Cork hurling manager John Allenjoins The Irish Times. His column will appear on Fridays throughout the spring and summer

Bet most of you don't know what the Hanseatic League was. Well I'm going to tell you. It was an alliance of trading guilds that established and maintained a trade monopoly over the Baltic Sea, some of the North Sea and most of northern Europe for a time in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period between the 13th and 17th centuries.

What is a league in sporting terms? It's a competition in which each team plays all the other teams.

What is the Allianz Hurling League? It's a competition that smoulders between late February and late April. Its embers badly need to be stoked. I'm not really sure where the blame lies for this sleeping lightishweight. But I'm fairly sure of one fact, the competition is very poorly marketed.

We saw at first hand the result of the comprehensive advertising campaign that preceded the Football League opener between Tyrone and Dublin in Croke Park. I've lost count of the amount of times over the last few years I've been asked who we were playing next in the league.

Why isn't there more television and media advertising? There could be competitions on the local radio stations with tickets to the games as prizes. Why aren't free children's tickets distributed to schools for the home games?

Why aren't there substantial monetary prizes for the players' funds of teams participating in the finals? I know it's a secondary competition but it certainly could be made more attractive for supporters and players alike.

The Patrick's Day club finals were a great example of the lack of proper marketing. What an opportunity to market abroad to attract people to come to Croke Park for good quality games that are never going to be a sell-out yet they are always full of excitement and colour and never short on skill and endeavour. Aer Lingus and the GAA could take to the skies next March maybe.

Okay. The rant is finished for now.

So what's the story with the league? Well just like the Hanseatic one, since its inception this league has been more or less a monopoly as well. That is a monopoly with three teams dominating. Those same three teams also dominate the Liam MacCarthy Cup competition. In this league's history Tipperary have 19 titles to Cork's 14 and Kilkenny's 13.

By the way, this competition didn't begin until 1925. Also worthy of note is Limerick won five titles in a row between 1934 and '38.

So what's the story this year? Division One is running along usual lines with the usual strong teams dominating. The exception to this monopoly is the very welcome arrival of Dublin to the big stage. I saw Dublin play Kerry last year in the Division Two league final. I thought the standard was only average. It's great to see them doing so well this season.

But then maybe it has been on the cards for a while. Over half of the team that beat Galway recently have come through development squads that have been in operation in the county for over a decade now.

One of the big problems in Dublin has been the good dual player who up to recently would have opted to play football, the lure of potential success the magnet, of course. But apparently that is changing with some of the better dual players now opting to play hurling, Tomás Brady and John McCaffrey being examples.

Hurling badly needs a few new teams to challenge for the ultimate prizes. These teams need to have players who want to play for the county and who are willing to make the huge sacrifices needed. The boards of these counties need to treat the players properly and the managements need to be well organised and professional.

In my opinion, there hasn't been much consistency overall. You would be still hard-pressed to say we'll have any major surprises in this year's league or championship, Dublin, so far, being the only team to show consistent encouraging form, that is until Wednesday night when Antrim threw a spanner in the works.

Division Two has Wicklow, Kildare and Westmeath in pole positions with Sligo and Roscommon heading up Division Three.

So what's the story this weekend? The results of last weekend mean that most of next week's results will have a crucial bearing on qualification for the play-offs.

In both Division One sections qualification could mathematically come down to scoring difference. Down are the only team in One A that can't qualify. Four of the six teams in One B can still qualify.

Kilkenny against Galway in Nowlan Park should be a game to see. It will certainly give Ger Loughnane a good indication of how good or otherwise his Galway team is.

I've no doubt that Tony Considine and Clare would like to set down a marker against Cork with the championship fixture against the Rebels only eight weeks away.

It's great that so many of Sunday's games have significance. A good weekend's hurling expected.

New territorial states began the beginning of the downfall of the Hanseatic League and by the late 16th century the league imploded.

Maybe Dublin will become the new territorial state to break the hurling league monopoly. However, I doubt it.

No imploding expected.