Possibly nothing more cogently expresses the mixture of dismay and desperation felt across the League of Ireland First Division at the scrapping of the promotion-relegation play-offs than the proposal, aired at a meeting of club representatives in Wexford last week, that the top three teams in the second tier would take part in an internal play-off at the end of this season, with the front-runners facing the winners of second v third in a one-off game to decide promotion to the 10-team Premier Division in 2018.