Antrim’s disappointing defeat by Mickey Harte’s Louth in Ardee leaves the Saffrons’ promotion hopes probably resting on them beating also-in-contention Westmeath at Corrigan Park plus Fermanagh doing them a favour by accounting for second-placed Limerick at the Gaelic Grounds, with Louth expected to confirm their second successive promotion by avoiding defeat in Aughrim.
Louth would be denied a second successive promotion if they lose against relegation-threatened Wicklow, Limerick beat Fermanagh and the Saffrons v Westmeath contest is drawn.
That would put four teams on nine points with the Corrigan Park winners and Limerick going up to Division Two on scoring difference.
Another scenario which would see the Saffrons snatch promotion is if they beat Westmeath, Louth lose in Wicklow and Limerick draw with Fermanagh, which would put all three teams on nine points with Antrim and Limerick going up to Division Two.
Mathematically, Fermanagh can still be promoted but they need to hammer Limerick by 17 points and hope the Corrigan Park game is drawn, which would see the Ernemen, Antrim, the Treaty County and Westmeath all on eight points but with Kieran Donnelly’s men going up on scoring difference.
Fermanagh boss Donnelly, still angry after the controversial ‘point that wasn’t’ in Sunday’s draw in Mullingar, admitted such a scenario was “pretty unlikely” with the Ernemen effectively the only of the eight Division Three teams who have nothing at stake this weekend – beyond producing a decent performance with the Ulster SFC opener against Tyrone coming up fast.
At the bottom of the table, a Longford victory in Laois would most likely relegate Laois to Division Four – unless Wicklow beat Louth which would leave all three bottom teams on five points and scoring difference sorting out who suffers the drop.
At the moment, Laois have a vastly superior scoring difference of +4 as opposed to Wicklow’s -26 and Longford’s -21.
