Kildare visit is Royals’ reward
The winners of the second-round replay will face Tyrone while Meath have been drawn at home against Kildare in a repeat of their Leinster SFC quarter-final.
That game is the pick of the four and will surely attract a considerable crowd to Páirc Tailteann as Meath aim to exact revenge for the defeat made infamous by Graham Geraghty’s disallowed goal.
After surprising Offaly on Saturday, Limerick entertain Waterford next weekend, while Antrim will host Down.
The second-round qualifier, as well as those three third round games, will be played this weekend with the GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee to name times and venues today.
Limerick’s Seánie Buckley last night said both themselves and the Déise, as Division Three teams, will be happy with their lot.
“They’ll look at it as a good draw too,” he said. “We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We’re glad to have avoided an away draw, especially one up north. That would have been difficult.”
After their season looked doomed following an 11-point Munster semi-final loss to Kerry, Limerick will go into the game buoyed by their Saturday win over Offaly at the Gaelic Grounds.
“We didn’t know what to expect going into the game but thankfully everything on the day clicked for us. We have good forwards and we were able to give them the ball they crave on Saturday.”
The fourth and final round of the qualifiers draw was almost made with All-Ireland champions Cork facing a repeat of last year’s final if Down beat Antrim.
The winners of the Meath and Kildare tie will take on the Ulster runners-up, Donegal or Derry, while yesterday’s Leinster losers Wexford have a date with either Limerick or Waterford.
Unlike the Connacht runners-up, the Ulster final losers will not have at least a 13-day break to prepare for their qualifier.
The defeated team in next Sunday’s Connacht final in Hyde Park between Mayo and Roscommon will face either Armagh, Tyrone or Wicklow.
As Armagh and Wicklow have yet to settle their second round qualifier, the fourth round back door game involving the Connacht runners-up won’t take place until the August Bank Holiday weekend.
The GAA also confirmed that because of Armagh and Wicklow’s replay, at least one of the All-Ireland quarter-finals will have to be put back a week as all the weekends up to and including the August Bank Holiday are taken up with SFC games.
Dublin manager Pat Gilroy is hoping the newly-crowned Leinster champions won’t suffer as a result of the replay and have to wait four weeks, as opposed to three, for their last-eight encounter.
“You just have to deal with it,” he shrugged. “You won’t know until the week before, when the draw is made, which is a pity. You could be gearing up for a match in three weeks, and you might be playing in four weeks.
“I think everyone would prefer to play in the three weeks. It’s plenty of time. But we’ve tons of work to do, and if we get the extra week it might be no harm either.”
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