If Wexford are relegated to the Joe McDonagh Cup this weekend, there are no guarantees that they will bounce straight back.

That’s according to Carlow captain Paul Doyle whose side will do battle with Offaly at Croke Park on Saturday for a place in the Liam MacCarthy Cup next year after spending the last four seasons in the second-tier championship.

"If you go back down, it’s not necessarily that you’re going to go back up as we found out," he told RTÉ at yesterday’s Joe McDonagh Cup final press briefing.

"We did it in 2019. We lost all our games, went straight down. Then in 2020 we really struggled to come back up straight away. That just shows you. It's a cut-throat competition.

"The four games we played [before a last round win over an understrength Offaly] were tight games. We were lucky enough to get two wins and two draws, and the two draws could have gone any way. If we didn’t get that last-minute free to draw the game against Laois, to get the penalty that ‘Mouse’ (Marty Kavanagh) scored, I wouldn’t be here today."

Tweet

Most Read Stories