Column: D-day in the Football League

There is a kind of snobbishness attached to it. Taking the league seriously, that is, or certainly proclaiming openly that it is a competition worth winning. Naw!

Better to join the ranks of the those chasing Sam Maguire and let the league take care of itself!

Preservation of one's elite status is what matters with the big cats. Winning it is a bonus. It's the championship that counts, silly!

All is fine and dandy until unexpectedly you find that your county has to face the unpalatable truth that relegation is riding on the outcome of the final round of games.

Squeaky bum time!

This weekend, supporters of some of the fancied teams nationwide are left shaking their heads in wonder as to how their heroes have reached the final round of the spring campaign with the trap door of relegation looming large beneath them.

Kerry and Tyrone surprisingly are now in the death throes of Division 1 football. Even though between them they have won eight of the last 13 All-Ireland finals, their meeting in Omagh carries a certainty of relegation for the hosts if they are beaten and the same unthinkable reality for the visitors were they to lose by a margin of two points or more.

Without Colm Cooper, Paul Geaney and James O'Donoghue (who scored three goals in the corresponding fixture last year), Kerry's task looks increasingly difficult.

However, given Tyrone's erratic form at the moment, it would take a brave man to wager a few bob on them. You get a sense that Mickey Harte is becoming increasingly frustrated with the absence of a consistent response from his team this year.

Perhaps it will take the do-or-die scenario that this game carries to bring the best out in his squad. I am heading to the bookies confident in the knowledge that he will dredge one massive performance from his charges and retain a spot in the top division.

The absence of those earlier mentioned will be too great a burden for even the Kingdom to carry. Kerry relegated? Watch the space!

Mathematically, whoever loses the Mayo v Donegal tie could face the drop. Yet it would also require a freakish combination of outcomes elsewhere for the defeated to get relegated.

Indeed, if Mayo were to win by a margin of three points or more they would leapfrog Donegal and qualify for a semi-final berth.

The travelling faithful leaving Páirc Uí Rinn last Sunday were encouraged by the quality shown by the Green and Red. The welcome contrast to the wholly inept and diffident performance in their defeat to Dublin was welcome.

Peripheral players like Tom Parsons in particular and Barry Moran reminded the management of their worth. Danny Kirby, familiar to Pat Holmes from his stint with Castlebar Mitchels but serving his apprenticeship at elite level, reprised his role as a target man effectively.

A Murphy-less Donegal have also a semi-final berth to play for but with their championship encounter with Tyrone a mere six weeks away, will the prospect of extra games through April be high on Rory Gallagher's agenda? I doubt it.

The occasion is ideal for Mayo to build on last week's impressive performance and reacquaint themselves with Croke Park.

I am not being disrespectful but the Derry v Cork game is a dead rubber. I watched the Oak Leaf county earlier in the season in Celtic Park and you can sense there is more to the team than results have revealed this spring.

Eoin Bradley's return for the championship might provide the necessary spark but the Owenbeg faithful will hope for at least an improvement in performance to the one they witnessed in Croke Park last weekend.

The winners of the Dublin and Monaghan tie in Clones are sure of a last-four berth.

Once more, and again its result dependant elsewhere, the losers could still go through to the penultimate stage. I won't trawl through the range of possible permutations but it is appropriate here to mention that if two teams are level on points the result of their earlier head-to-head contest will determine who advances.

Points difference will only determine advancement if there are more than two teams level on points and the team with the best points difference will go through.

One statistic that doesn't lie is that the All Ireland champions come exclusively from those who compete in the top tier of the league.

Indeed since the turn of the millennium only two teams competing from Division 2 - Down in 2010 - Donegal in 2014, have reached an All-Ireland decider.

This year the battle for promotion to football's top echelon burns as fiercely as ever. Every team, even Westmeath in last place, will do all in their power to win on Sunday.

Were Westmeath to win and both Laois and Kildare to lose, the Lakesiders would stay in the division, while the other two mentioned would be relegated.

Kildare's failure to make an impact so far has surprised me. The disastrous start in losing their opening three games was a blow they found hard to recover from and the glimmer of light afforded by last week's win over Laois may be a case of too little too late.

Galway, their opponents this Sunday, have frustrated and bemused their followers in equal measure. After a great opening day win over Meath they looked set fair for a successful campaign but successive defeats to Cavan and Laois damaged their prospects for promotion.

If I was to stick my neck out and predict who will go up I would plump for Meath and Roscommon, even though Down would be most people's choice to join the Royals.

Heart ruling head time maybe, but Roscommon have a bunch of young guns at the moment who we will hear quite a bit about in the near future and, in my opinion, would not look out of place in the top division. Damaged confidence as a result of the defeat to Galway may linger and their points difference may be inferior but I still have a sense that they will succeed.

Fermanagh and Armagh are promoted from Division 3 but I am sad to see that Wexford, who provided us with many memorable moments in recent years, are likely relegation candidates.

The outcome of the clash between Offaly and Antrim will determine who will join Longford in Division 3. Offaly are a traditional powerhouse who have gone into decline but Antrim, with their short passing and defensive-orientated template, will be very difficult opponents. If CJ McGourty can produce his best I would fancy the Ulster team.

Complaints about standards of football and the mind-numbing defensive approach from many teams have filled print space throughout the current campaign. The GAA has allowed the game to evolve under a particular set of rules and every manager worth his salt will try to operate to their boundaries.

In a game that allows an endless litany of hand passes, games will contract, foot passing will be an afterthought and defensive structures will dominate. The league just gone has confirmed this repeatedly.

Rant over. Good luck to all involved on Sunday.

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