Ladies to take on Kerry, Meath and Clare in league

THE GROUPS for the Lidl Ladies’ National Football league were announced during the week, with Wexford pitted in Division 2A alongside Kerry, Meath and Clare.

Northern counties Tyrone, Monaghan, Armagh and Cavan are on the other side of the draw.

The Slaneysiders have yet to learn who they will face on which particular date but do know they will have fixtures on three consecutive weeks from the weekend of May 23, with a potential semi-final in mid-June.

Manager Paul Carty will be looking to improve on a poor league campaign in 2020 which saw his side take several unmerciful hidings before Covid-19 hit and a near certain relegation was avoided.

Wexford did come back for the championship after lockdown and looked a lot more like a side with potential, but they will need to build on that to have any hope of making an impact against three teams that are expected to be stronger than the 2019 Leinster Intermediate champions.

The saving grace for Wexford is that the groups have been decided on a geographical basis, avoiding long journeys to the north, plus the difficulty of playing against four sides who were in the All-Ireland Senior championship last season.

Wexford will be able to return to the training field from next Monday, when restrictions on inter-county adult GAA team training are relaxed by the Government. There are no dates yet released for the commencement of the All-Ireland series, while the exact league fixtures are expected in the coming days.

Several attempts were made by this newspaper at the end of last week to get reaction to the fixtures from Wexford manager Paul Carty.

However, thoese efforts to contact the St. Mary’s (Maudlintown) clubman proved fruitless.