{"id":323005,"date":"2026-03-01T06:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T06:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323005\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T06:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T06:28:10","slug":"down-back-up-to-division-2-after-inflicting-fermanaghs-fifth-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323005\/","title":{"rendered":"Down back up to Division 2 after inflicting Fermanagh&#8217;s fifth defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                Down back up to Division 2 after inflicting Fermanagh&#8217;s fifth defeat<br \/>\n                February 28, 2026<\/p>\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/012acb35-6875-46e8-8746-4d310300b04c.jpg\"\/><br \/>Down&#8217;s Pat Havern \u00a9INPHO\/Leah Scholes<\/p>\n<p>Down made a quick return to Division 2 of the Allianz Football League after defeating Fermanagh by 1-18 to 1-15 in Newry this evening.<\/p>\n<p>The result marks a fifth consecutive league win for Conor Laverty\u2019s side as they now look forward to a Division 3 final date with their fellow promotion earners.<\/p>\n<p>The Mourne men had run up a 0-7 to 0-3 lead in this all-Ulster clash before Odhran Murdock hammered in their goal in the 20th minute and they\u2019d move towards a 1-10 to 0-7 half-time advantage.<\/p>\n<p>The visitors trimmed their deficit down three with help of scores from Conor Love, Garvan Jones and a Darragh McGurn two-pointer after the change of ends and, while Down pushed their lead back out to six, a late Ronan McCaffrey would leave a score in it before the hooter eventually sounded at Pairc Esler.<\/p>\n<p>In Rathkeale, Clare gave a major boost to their promotion hopes by seeing off neighbours Limerick on a 1-21 to 1-12 scoreline.<\/p>\n<p>Limerick\u2019s brilliant start, which included a Cillian Fahy goal, saw them 1-3 to 0-1 up after 13 minutes, but a quick 1-2 from Mark McInerney had the sides level with two minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The next five scores, including a second two-pointer from McInerney, went the way of the Banner men as they moved towards a 1-11 to 1-5 lead at the break and the second-half would see the scores of Eoin Cleary and McInerney get them safely over the line towards their third win.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, well-timed goals helped Laois to come out on top in an all-Leinster showdown against Westmeath at Laois Hire O&#8217;Moore Park.<\/p>\n<p>Ronan Coffey, Paul Kingston (penalty) and Evan O\u2019Carroll bagged the home side\u2019s goals in a 3-16 to 1-13 victory which marks their second of the league campaign while dealing Westmeath their second defeat in the process.<\/p>\n<p>Coffey\u2019s goal was the difference between the teams at half-time (1-9 to 0-9) and the O\u2019Moore men would be 1-12 to 0-11 up when they won a penalty which Kingston dispatched before O\u2019Carroll saw his 69th minute goal cancelled out by a Luke Loughlin penalty at the death.<\/p>\n<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-lang=\"en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n<p>    Most Read Stories<\/p>\n<p>            <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Down back up to Division 2 after inflicting Fermanagh&#8217;s fifth defeat February 28, 2026 Down&#8217;s Pat Havern \u00a9INPHO\/Leah&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-323005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}