Draw to follow Munster final All-Ireland SFC Qualifiers

The GAA intend to hold the draw for the fourth round of the All-Ireland football qualifier series immediately after Sunday's Munster football final. It will be carried out at the conclusion to RTÉ's live broadcast that afternoon, which starts with the Ulster football final at 2.30 p.m.

Problems arose with the third-round draw when the details were leaked to the counties involved before the delayed transmission later that night on RTÉ's The Sunday Game. The idea of a Monday morning draw, as was done for the latest round of the hurling qualifiers, was abandoned in favour of the Sunday evening format.

Eight teams will make up the draw, but for the first time this season they will be divided into two groups.

In one bowl will be the losers of the four provincial finals (Mayo, Down or Tyrone, Limerick or Kerry, and Laois or Kildare), and they will be drawn against the four winners of round three, in the other bowl (Armagh, Donegal, Fermanagh and Roscommon).

All fourth round games will be played at neutral venues, and they will also be spread over two weekends - July 19th/20th and July 26th/27th - as the Leinster football final is not being decided until Sunday week.

The team least expected to make this stage are Fermanagh, but for Raymond Gallagher, by far their leading scoring forward of the season, there are now genuine hopes of the county progressing to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

"The way we see it we will mostly likely be playing either Limerick, Mayo or Kildare," says Gallagher. "And I don't think there should be too much between us and any of those teams.

"No one gave us much of a chance of beating Meath, and, in fairness, with our form of the previous few games that was to be expected. But we know that if we can repeat that sort of display again, and especially the way we played in the second half, then we can get another day out."

Gallagher admits that the latest odds for the All-Ireland football title had caught his attention. Fermanagh are now rated as just 33 to 1 outsiders, the same as Donegal, but ahead of Down (40 to 1).

"I wonder what sort of odds you would have got on Fermanagh before last Sunday," he says. "But I honestly think the All-Ireland is still very open. You still have a lot of teams in there, such as Laois, who have a genuine chance of winning the title.

"We're just concentrating on reproducing the form of the last day, because the whole team really did lift their performance. And right across the field, from the defence to the full forward line."

The celebrations after Sunday's victory over Meath were always kept in perspective, however, because of the fiercely difficult circumstances for manager Dominic Corrigan. In the days before the game all his thoughts were with his seriously-ill brother, and who then passed away the morning after the game.

"It's been very hard on him," says Gallagher, "and to be honest I don't know how he did it. But we're due to train again this evening after the removal and that's the way he wanted it to be."

There has been a strong emotional bond developing in the Fermanagh camp over the past months, which was helped by their extended league run this spring. The back-room team had also been expanded with the addition of Brendan Hackett as a consultant on some of the psychological preparations.

Largely recognised for his involvement with Irish athletes, Hackett has also worked in GAA circles for several years.

"He has helped us work on some of the mental aspects of the game, rather than the physical," says Gallagher. "But that is the way GAA has gone these days. And I suppose it does make a difference."