The some times invisible line between the summit and the basement of affairs in Division 2 was summed up at the end of this entertaining tussle of many twists before Laois finally turned for home with two precious points in their safe-keeping.

As it was envisaged with full Sam Maguire Cup membership on the line, Divisions 2 and 3 are for the most part tight as a drum. Where survival in Division 2 and success in Division 3 are the only things that matter, we assess the 16 counties at the halfway point of the campaign.

Clare saved their most disappointing performance of this year’s Division Two campaign as they hardly raised a gallop on their visit to a wet and windy Dr. Hyde Park.

Long-serving Clare manager Colm Collins is an advocate of Gaelic football’s new sin bin rule, but is scathing in his criticism of the advanced mark.

Clare manager Colm Collins joins Mark Landers, Michael Moynihan, Tony Leen and Anthony Daly to review the weekend's Allianz League action.

Just as everything came right for Clare as they recovered from an 0-8 to 0-6 deficit early in the second half to hit five out of the last seven points for victory, it went horribly wrong for Kildare

Promotion or relegation matters are never decided on the first weekend in February, but at the same time a sneak preview of the way things might pan out over the course of the seven-match campaign can loom very large.

A converted free by John Heslin in the fifth minute of injury-time secured a vital brace of National Football League Division 2 points for Westmeath against Clare in Mullingar on Sunday afternoon.

Paul Keane previews Division 2 of the Allianz Football League.

Football life without former captain and talisman Gary Brennan will be a huge challenge for Clare in the 2020 Allianz League, but manager Colm Collins is bullish about the Banner County’s prospects of holding their own in Division 2 for a fourth successive year.

Although the likes of Waterford and Wexford are cool on the idea, Cooney indicated support for Limerick’s proposal, which is set to be voted on at Annual Congress in Croke Park next month.

Gavin Cooney hit two goals for the Banner.

The former Dublin forward managed his county 48 times in the Championship and a further 59 times in the National League, bringing his grand total to 107.

Fr Harry Bohan is 80 but you wouldn’t know it.

219 days before it begins, the 2020 Munster senior football championship draw, along with Connacht’s, was to take place on RTÉ Radio this morning.

Colm Collins has now been a senior intercounty football manager for longer than any other manager — apart from two others.

Rory Gallagher has been ratified as the new manager of the Derry senior football team.

Despite Declan Bonner’s ratification as Donegal manager for 2020, his head coach Stephen Rochford is believed to be a live candidate to replace Kevin Walsh as Galway senior football manager.

Colm Collins has been ratified as manager of the Clare senior footballers and 2020 will mark his seventh year in the position.

Clare hurling joint-managers Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor are considering seeking a fourth year at the helm, according to Banner County board chairman Joe Cooney, while football boss Colm Collins is to remain in charge for a seventh year.

Colm Collins, the third longest serving inter-county senior football manager, has confirmed he'll take time out to consider his future after Clare's Championship exit.

Paul Keane in scoreboard Watching this epic qualifier tie unfold in Portlaoise, Clare sweating buckets and Meath literally spilling blood, we recalled how Colm Collins once described the Super 8s as a ‘cynical exercise in collecting more money’ by the GAA.

For all the progress the Clare footballers have made during Colm Collins’ six seasons at the helm, rising, as they have done, from the league’s basement tier up to Division 2, as well as securing the county’s first All-Ireland quarter-final appearance, game-to-game consistency at summertime has been an issue.

For the fourth year in a row Clare followed their Munster Championship exit to Kerry with victory in their opening qualifier game of the summer, but the challenge for Colm Collins’ side is to to put

Clare fended off a strong Leitrim resurgence in the second-half as Colm Collins’s side worked their way into Round 3 of the qualifiers with a convincing win over Leinster at Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada.

Michael Murphy will lead Donegal into an Ulster senior football championship final for the eighth time on Sunday hoping to get his hands on the Anglo-Celt Cup for the fifth time.

On the road up to Ennis on Saturday evening, Clive Tyldesley was being interviewed on the radio about his recollections of his 1999 Champions League final commentary on ITV, and specifically about those final, frantic minutes when Manchester United went from 1-0 down in injury-time to somehow turn the tables and beat Bayern Munich 2-1.

The result was never in doubt, so why did Kerry’s victory feel like a let-down?

Kerry made hard work of seeing off Clare in heavy conditions to book a Munster final spot against Cork in three weeks’ time.

When the conversation turns to his preferred championship structure, Clare football selector Enda Coughlan quickly shows himself to be at one with the man who drafted him into the county’s backroom team little over a year after he’d hung up his boots.

Anthony Daly and John Fogarty review the hurling weekend and we hear from Ronan McCarthy and James Horan.

Our writers wrap up the major talking points from the weekend's league action...

First things first, Oisín McConville has warned Cork not to expect any favours from Armagh this weekend

For Munster football, a chastening weekend lies in store. Irrespective of what materialises at the Athletic Grounds and Semple Stadium tomorrow afternoon, two from Clare, Cork, and Tipperary will suffer relegation to Division 3.

Rory Gallagher isn’t shying away from it. Five games into a division they were favourites to be relegated from, unbeaten Fermanagh took another big step towards a fairytale promotion at Brewster Park yesterday and their manager isn’t blinking at the bright lights ahead.

When Cork football rolled out its 2024 vision document last month, it was generally applauded how pragmatic its proponents like Graham Canty were by acknowledging that Cork were now outside the top 10 teams in the country, in truth, a mid-table Division Two side, and a distant second in Munster.

Colm Collins blamed a frozen pitch in Páirc Esler for the horrific ankle injury sustained by Dermot Coughlan, while Kieran McGeeney was unhappy three key decisions went against Armagh in an action-packed Division Two draw in Newry.

As much as Clare have progressed and consolidated under the masterful watch of Colm Collins, they’ve developed a regrettable tendency to foil glorious chances to nail a big trophy head upon the wall.

Limerick football manager Billy Lee has gone against the grain by declaring he is not opposed to the three-handpass limit.

Turlough O’Brien may have been a tad hyperbolic when he claimed the proposed rule changes to football are reflective of a 1940s mindset yearning for the days when players donned flat caps, but certainly the suggested place for such experimentation smacks of a mentality that’s anachronistic.

"You have got to think about what can be enforced in the existing system without a second referee."

Páraic Fanning could be named as the new Waterford senior hurling manager later this week, although influential figures have not yet given up of Mattie Kenny taking the reins.