STILL ALL TO PLAY FOR – FOR MOST OF ULSTER IN FINAL ROUND OF LEAGUE FIXTURES

For seven of the Ulster counties, it’s still all to play for ahead of this weekend’s final round of fixtures.

The eyes and ears of football fans (bar those in Cavan and Antrim) in the Red Hand province will remain focussed ’till the final whistles blow on the games this Sunday.

For some counties in this neck of the woods, their destiny is in their own hands; others will be relying on a helping hand from others while, for others, it’ll be a case of looking further down the line as they face into meaningless fixtures.

The meaningless matches this Sunday for Ulster teams are reserved for Cavan and Antrim, albeit for altogether different reasons.

In so-called ‘dead rubber’ ties, performances normally live down to expectations and so it was at Kingspan/Breffni Park last Saturday night when Cavan beat Roscommon by 0-14 to 0-8.

With both teams having already booked their places in the division three decider, fans were treated to a game that had little edge about it, psychological or otherwise.

Cavan had things relatively easy and were able to go up through the gears in systematic fashion; aided and abetted by a Roscommon side who were wont to shoot themselves in the foot.

Roscommon were the better team in the opening quarter at the end of which they led by 1-3 to 0-3 but it was all downhill thereafter.

After engineering a 1-3 to 0-3 lead by the end of the opening quarter, the visitors failed to raise a flag for a full 29 minutes straddling the interval, had a man sent off late in the first half and made a dog’s dinner of a penalty in the run in to the finishing post.

Antrim’s fate in division four has been known for the past couple of weeks. Their 3-15 to 1-10 victory over London last weekend will help their confidence and morale. Any day a team climbs off the foot of the table and …