Limerick v Galway: Tribesmen enjoy fringe benefits of drop, says Pádraic Mannion

Relegation should never be a popular option and Pádraic Mannion stresses it isn’t a picnic but there are fringe benefits. Division 1B this year afforded Micheál Donoghue the chance to cast a net he may never have been able to in the top flight.

Sure, commitments with Ahascragh-Fohenagh meant Mannion and young brother Cathal were unavailable but then so too were St Thomas’ players for a short time and injuries to the likes of Joe Canning compelled Donoghue to experiment.

But he would have wanted to anyway and coming up against lower standard teams in Division 1B made it easier to give game-time to 34 players. Mannion knows that would have been difficult in the cut-throat 1A. “It mightn’t have happened. You’re playing the top teams week-in, week-out but I know you’d hear people saying that teams are in relegation from Division 1A that there’s a bit of a crisis, but I think the year Clare won the All-Ireland, it was themselves and Cork in relegation that year and the two of them got to the final.