The county’s hurlers are enduring difficulties in this year’s NHL Division 3A campaign and their troubles deepened this afternoon as they fell to their second loss of the campaign. It’s a defeat that sees them rooted to the bottom of the table after three rounds, with successive relegations now a very real danger for them.

Only last summer, the county was contesting a Christy Ring Cup final. Now, however, there’s every chance that they could slide to the NHL’s bottom tier for next year, unless they start to win games and fast.

In fairness, they only lost out against Armagh this afternoon at the Athletic Grounds by the minimum margin. At half-time they were going well, leading by three points at that stage, but two Armagh goals early in the second half put the home side in control, four to the good.

The visitors battled hard in the closing stages, paring the Orchard County’s lead right back to a single point. When the footballers met at this venue a few weeks back, Armagh had fought back from five down to claim a draw but the Westerners were unable to emulate this in today’s hurling encounter, just coming up short by a single score.

Hard luck to the lads today and here’s hoping for better things to come in their two remaining fixtures in this campaign. The first of these is at home to Monaghan in two weeks time, while the other one is away to Louth the following weekend.