Ulster rivals won’t be giving much
THE action may be slowing down somewhat, but the stakes are rising all the time for the three remaining Ulster sides to close out their league accounts.
The first game this weekend that concerns sides from the northern province is the meeting of Armagh and Fermanagh in the Division Three league final, which throws in at Croke Park at 5pm today.
Kieran McGeeney’s Armagh side clinched promotion in the second last game of the league campaign when they eked out a tight, tense 0-7 each draw with Fermanagh away.
The Ernemen left it to the final play of their league campaign to make it back to Division Two after a year away, that coming virtue of a free from distance from Seamus Quigley, who scored three frees in injury-time to keep Longford down and propel his side into the final.
Just how useful this game would prove to either side is worthy of discussion. The two will meet again on May 19 in the Ulster Championship in Brewster Park, which means they will have faced each other in three out of four games.
It was suggested on the League Sunday highlights wrap show by Tomás ÓSé that both sides would be going after a win in Croke Park, but some reality needs to enter the equation.
Consider that in 2015, the same two teams met in the same final. Armagh won that encounter by five points, but in the Championship they were subject to a hiding by Donegal and in the second round were dumped out by Galway.
Meanwhile, Fermanagh progressed to the semi-final of Ulster before reaching the last-eight of the All-Ireland series, proof if ever it was needed that a league performance tells little about Championship prospects.
With both sides meeting each other again in six weeks’ time in the Ulster Championship, paranoia levels will be heightened and neither side is likely to reveal any tactical innovations today.
Indeed, Fermanagh manager