By Shaun Casey

A VICTORY down in Sligo would be a big boost for Karl McKeegan’s Armagh side as they hope to retain their Division Three status. Armagh and Sligo are currently joint at the bottom of the table with zero points to show for their efforts.

Armagh have only featured in two outings so far this season and they ended in 15- and nine-point point defeats against Roscommon and Wicklow respectively.

Their round three clash with Cavan last weekend was postponed duo to an unplayable pitch at Kingspan Breffni.

Sligo have lost all three of their outings against Wicklow, Cavan and Mayo so both sides are hoping to pick up their first points of 2025 on Sunday. McKeegan knows the tough challenge that lies ahead for his side at Markievicz Park.

“There are three or four teams all down at the bottom end with either zero points or two points, so this is a massive game for us this weekend,” said the Antrim native.

“We just have to take the right approach into this game, and we know they’re a good side.

“We played against them last year in the league and we know what we’re going to get against them. We need to be prepared, and we need to realise what’s at stake in this game and hopefully the boys will be well up for it.”

While on their way to the Breffni County last Sunday, word filtered through that the game was going to be postponed but it wasn’t a completely wasted weekend.

The Orchard County did work in a training session in preparation for this weekend.

“It’s not ideal because it leaves us now with four games in a row and this time of year, it worries me about injuries and things like that there because we only have two games played, everyone else has three at the least and some have four.

“They’re in the same boat as us, they had a week off last week and they’ve been off for three weeks and we’ve been off for three weeks. We got a training session done on Sunday, so it wasn’t completely wasted.

“We were disappointed the last day out against Wicklow because we saw how well we could play in the first half, but we dropped off in the second. The lads know they have it in them and they know what they have to do.”