Teams sweat it out over promotion and relegation

THE Men’s National Football League can be seen—from the outside at least—like the weigh-in before a heavyweight title fight. The pugilists get close, look each other square in the eye with maybe some shadow-boxing or actual pushing, before stepping off the stage knowing that the real deal is just around the corner.

But the league retains its own importance—especially trying to clamber up a division while avoiding crashing down into another. As a competition, the league allows teams to evolve quickly, to gel, blood new talent, hone new tactics and get familiar with whatever new rules Congress has passed.

However, with one round still to be played, most teams will have at least one eye on the Provincial Championships starting in just a few weeks’ time.

Still, narratives will be spun and one ahead of this penultimate round of games was the face-off between Kerry featuring David Clifford against Andy Moran’s Mayo with their own wunderkind, Kobe McDonald—a late starter in this game.

Oz-bound McDonald is on one of the longest goodbyes by one of the GAA’s newest—and briefest of—superstars and some may have hoped this premature swansong would end with an NFL winners’ medal. But down in Tralee ‘Andyball’ got rudely punctured by the three-pronged brilliance of Clifford, Dylan Geaney, and not least Sean O’Shea, who scored an outrageous two-pointer off the deck in play.

More prosaically, perhaps Mayo’s 14 wides to Kerry’s one is what did the damage, with Shane Murphy also shutting out two McDonald goal chances.

Kerry, and Jack O’Connor in particular, will be happy enough to contest another NFL Final. Every time O’Connor has won the league with Kerry, the Kingdom’s green and gold ribbons have been tied onto the Sam Maguire trophy later that same year.

Donegal may well be their opponents in the final despite losing to Roscommon, who will feel themselves to be on an upwards trajectory after defeating Dublin the week before.

Elsewhere in the top division, Armagh and Dublin are often cited as two All-Ireland champions to emerge from Division 2 that season. Neither really wants to put that theory to the test in 2027, and following their victory in the capital, Armagh will look to home advantage to get the points against Kerry to stay up.

Back in February, Dublin manager, Ger Brennan, famously announced that he had looked at a pot of 164 players ahead of the season. Having distilled that down, he has been left with plenty of old bones in there still. Experience is good of course, but he might wonder about some of those high-mileage players, as Dublin let slip a second-half 11 point lead.

Galway will welcome Brennan’s men for the final league match and, after beating Monaghan in the penultimate round, they will hope they can consign a second team to relegation to secure their own top flight status.

At least six of the teams in Division 2 would have targeted promotion on Day 1. While Kildare are suddenly staring at the trapdoor, Tyrone’s second tier safety has been secured by other results, with plenty of head-scratching at Malachy O’Rourke’s men’s lack of energy this spring.The much heralded influx of minor and U21 talent is still to arrive.

So, four teams still jockey for two promotion places although injury-hit Louth have almost knocked Derry out of the saddle, keeping themselves in the hunt with a four-point home victory over the erstwhile league leaders.

It’s 10 years since Cork have been at the top table and having conceded 1-31 to Derry a week ago, they took notes hitting the same tally in a nine-point win over to Kildare to revive their promotion hopes. Consistent? No. Enthralling? Yes.

Meath—facing doomed Offaly in the final round—are the hot favourites to join the Rebels moving on up.

An All-Ireland winner from Division 3? Not likely, but Down eased to promotion with one round of games to spare. Rattling Galway last season, they’ll hope to shake things up a bit again this year.

Westmeath travel to Wexford in a straight shoot-out for the second promotion place. History suggests the Lake County will submerge their Model rivals, but the Yellowbellies are chasing back-to-back promotions.

Another county more famous for the stick game, Limerick need other results to be kind to avoid tumbling down to Division 4 with Fermanagh.

There are four teams realistically in with a shout of climbing the ladder out of the bottom division, but even seventh placed Leitrim on six points, could theoretically get promoted with several strokes of good fortune. Still, it’s Wicklow and Carlow that look best placed.

It may be far from the main event, but approaching the final day, the NFL is still causing many teams—and their supporters—to work up a sweat.