Flying Kildare and Offaly continued to set the early pace in Division Three of the National Football League with impressively easy wins on Sunday. With six points out of their first three games, they have set the benchmark for others, although there is a lot of football to be played yet with plenty of potential twists and turns.
Clare and an improving Laois side are on four points and well in the promotion race after recording important wins on Sunday. The Ulster sides, Antrim and Fermanagh are on two points each after their defeats on Sunday and while they may be harbouring hopes of getting into the promotion battle, their big priority at this stage is to retain their Division Three status.
Leitrim are pointless from their three games and with a horrific-looking scoring difference of -59 points are odds on for the drop back to Division Four. Sligo are also pointless after a third consecutive defeat and in the throes of a desperate relegation dogfight.
Red-hot promotion favourites, Kildare were responsible for Leitrim’s scoring difference nose diving in Ballinamore on Sunday as they ran riot in a 1-27 to 0-7 win. Kildare did the ground work in the first half, scoring points for fun with Alex Beirne weighing in with a 24th-minute goal. They led by 1-17 to 0-1 at half time and while the advent of two pointers means that big deficits can and are being overturned, this gap was just too big and the visitors won pulling up in the second half.
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Offaly have exceeded the expectations of their supporters with three wins out of three under joint managers Declan Kelly and Mickey Harte as well as playing some exciting, attacking football. They had a third big win, this time 4-19 to 0-15, over Antrim in Tullamore, though the visitors gave them a big helping hand when midfielders Conor Stewart and Conor Hand were red carded in the first six minutes of the second half.
Playing against the wind in the first half, goals from Shane Tierney and Cillian Bourke helped Offaly to a 2-8 to 0-12 interval lead with three two pointers keeping Antrim alive. It unravelled for the northerners early in the second half, though they fought hard to trail by 0-14 to 2-11 after 50 minutes. Two Keith O’Neill goals helped Offaly to enhance their scoring difference as they outscored them by 2-8 to 0-1 in the closing 20 minutes.
Laois have recovered very well from a first-round loss to Offaly with wins over Leitrim and Sligo. They laid the foundations for a 0-23 to 0-16 win over Sligo in the first half in Portlaoise where their 0-14 to 0-4 lead was a more than adequate cushion to see out the deal after the break.
The only truly competitive game of the round was in Ennis where Clare recorded a crucial 1-17 to 1-15 win over Fermanagh. This was a real tough encounter the whole way with little between the sides. An early Alan Sweeney goal gave Clare the initiative but Fermanagh struck back with a Joe McDade three-pointer to level it up at 1-3 each.
Clare got six of the next nine points for a 1-9 to 1-6 half time lead. There was next to nothing in it throughout the second half with Fermanagh trailing by just a point, 1-15 to 1-14, as the final whistle began to loom into spectators’ thoughts. Brian McNamara and Emmet McMahon got crucial Clare points as they held on for a win that keeps them very much in the promotion frame.
