Promotion next piece in jigsaw to cap Limerick footballers' progress

At the start of the campaign, Limerick's aim in Allianz Football League Division 3 was to first protect their status and avoid relegation at all costs.

That soon changed. The Shannonsiders will rise to the league’s second tier if they beat Fermanagh at home on Sunday.

It won’t be an easy task. Fermanagh have won three games themselves this season and are well organised, home and away.

But after a superb series of results, including a win over Laois last time out, Billy Lee's side are firmly in the promotion hunt ahead of next Sunday's final group game.

Promotion would revive memories of Limerick’s prominence in the league’s top half back around the mid-noughties, but Limerick football committee chairman Gerry Phillips says their development work will continue regardless of whatever happens this weekend.

"The work that Billy and his team have done is unbelievable," Phillips told RTÉ Sport. "The core of the team are in their mid-20s and they have been coming up through the ranks. Around 2013 we sat down to put an academy structure together. We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel because our hurling counterparts had started a similar system.

"Collette O’Grady, I and others put a plan together to draw the calibre of personnel we needed."

People like Paul Kinnerk, Muiris Gavin, Stephen Lavin and Dave McGuinness were involved at the very start, implementing structures.

Kinnerk and Gavin recruited ex-county players to get involved at the various levels and that system worked.

"From there, the list of people involved in our academy teams from under-14 to under-17 was unreal," Phillips adds.

"Coming from where we came in 2013 and prior to that everything was now very structured.

"We were blessed, Jerry O’Sullivan took the Limerick under-20s