GAA summer is never anything to set your clock by

Exactly 36 hours after Kildare became the final team through to final round of the All-Ireland SFC qualifiers, they and the seven others learned what lies between them and reaching the Super 8 yesterday morning.

For Roscommon, it ended a two-week limbo. On Saturday, their management — as well as those of Cork, Fermanagh and Laois — would have been scattered between Armagh, Carrick-on-Shannon, Enniskillen, and Newbridge to scout their would-be opponents.

Given Fermanagh couldn’t face Armagh or Monaghan again, Rory Gallagher was spared the trip to two of them but there was no such luck for the other three provincial runners-up.