Allianz Football League Division Three: Fermanagh v Laois (today, Brewster Park, 3.30pm)
NOTHING sums up the middle tier of Gaelic football as well as Fermanagh’s meeting with Laois this afternoon.
Four years ago, Fermanagh won promotion from Division Three and Laois won Division Four comfortably. That summer, they both reached their respective provincial finals.
The following season, Fermanagh came within a whisker of going up to Division One, while Laois earned back-to-back promotions to climb into the second tier.
Progress can be an awfully fleeting thing down the levels.
There are four games to go but at this stage, with Longford floundering and Wicklow in the rare position of seeking a new manager mid-league, today’s victors would almost certainly be safe from any threat of another trapdoor.
Why is they’re sitting above it though, so relatively soon after things appeared to be going well?
Like most things in the middleground, it’s a lot down to turnover of players.
Just two of the Fermanagh back nine that played in the 2018 Ulster final against Donegal will feature today.
In that time they’ve lost the quality of the Cullen brothers, Mickey Jones, Barry Mulrone and Eoin Donnelly.
Their attacking resources haven’t taken the same hit but nor have they been replenished with any great freshness.
And Laois? Well, it’s almost exactly the same story. From their defence for the Leinster final of ’18, only Gareth Dillon and Trevor Collins remain.
Gone are Graham Brody, Darren Strong, Mark Timmons, Finbarr Crowley, Colm Begley, Paul and Donie Kingston. That’s some list of players to be losing.
It’s the reality of Divisions Two and Three. Form fluctuates. Players take notions. They like setups or they dislike them and that informs whether they go back for another year or not.
In an ordinary year there’d be no medals to have but the Tailteann Cup almost certainly looms for both these sides, and right now they’d be among the group of teams that would gain a lot from winning it.
That’s for down the line. Both have one win and one draw from three games. February’s windiness has made it very hard to analyse anyone. There are good halves and bad halves everywhere.
Fermanagh were eight down to Wicklow and came back to draw. They were five down to Longford and came back to win by seven. A good second half team, or a good team to use a wind?
Laois certainly tried to use the wind against Antrim in their drawn Portlaoise encounter last weekend. They looked to kick pretty much the whole time. Fermanagh will hope Jonny Cassidy is fit to resume at full-back or they could find that a strain to play against.
What little bit of formline there is suggests Laois are in marginally better shape. They haven’t had the return they might expect from Evan O’Carroll, whose controversial fisted goal against Antrim is his only score of the league so far.
Gary Walsh has carried the fight while veterans Collins and Dillon both stood out against the Saffrons, while Seán O’Flynn caught the eye too.
Fermanagh’s defence against Longford had an exceptionally rookie look about it but the return of Ryan Jones, who hit four points from play from midfield, gave them a boost. Any continuation of his Derrygonnelly form from the club season would be an enormous building block. Few in Ulster played better football in the autumn.
Sean Quigley’s 3-10 is the obvious scoring platform but Laois, if O’Carroll can start firing at all, might just have the extra options to get over the line.
