Down bounced back from their first defeat of the campaign by scoring a three point home success over visiting Longford under the Pairc Esler lights in Newry on Saturday night.

This was to be a high scoring contest, both teams regularly on the mark and a total of thirty five points was to be tallied up over the course of a free flowing seventy minutes.

For Longford this was a defeat which more or less kills off their hopes of featuring in the promotion shake up as they now have shipped three reversals in four outings.

They were usually under pressure in this lively tussle as they made a hesitant enough start and it was a forceful Down who made most of the early running. The Mourne team were four points in front at the interval on a scoreline of 0-10 to 0-6 and leading the scoring charge for them were midfielder John Fegan and half forward John Clarke.

Longford were however never all that far adrift of the home side and they were to be denied goals by excellent shot stopping from accomplished Down keeper Brendan McVeigh.

Down were to manage the sharper finishing burst and they claimed the win which gets their promotion chase back on track with a late flourish of scores from John Clarke, Paul McComiskey and Benny Coulter. Full forward Coulter was to end the evening with a handsome personal tally of five points.

Previously unbeaten Wexford came perilously close to losing that record as they had to come from behind to salvage a draw with Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds. The league leaders had put in a nondescript first half which saw them to in at the break trailing by seven points.

Dermot Phelan had thumped home a 15th minute goal for Limerick and when Wexford had a player dismissed shortly before the interval, the game appeared to be safely in Limerick's hands.

But Wexford upped the tempo of their game on the changeover and when the home side also had a player sent off the match developed into a tight tussle. Limerick were to add just a mere two points to their impressive half time tally and as the game swung into the final quarter they were coming under intense pressure.

Adrain Flynn hammered in a Wexford goal to reduce the gap to three points and the impetus was not clearly with the revitalised Leinster team. They duly secured the draw with a flurry of late points as a faltering Limerick failed to hold out.

Over in Connacht the derby clash between Leitrim and Sligo at Carrick-on- Shannon proved to be a rather one sided affair with home team Leitrim racking up their first win in four outings as they scampered past a disappointing Sligo outfit.

The reigning Connacht champions were out of sorts right from the outset and they found themselves three points down in a matter of minutes as Leitrim sprinted out of the starting blocks.

Sligo did begin to stall the Leitrim charge and at the interval they were still in contention, just two points adrift on a scoreline of five to three.

But the resumption was to see a forceful Leitrim raise the quality of their game considerably and they poached three points to ease comfortably ahead.

Any hopes of a Sligo revival were killed off fifteen minutes from full time when Fintan McBrien smashed home what was to be the game's only goal.

That left struggling Sligo eight points in arrears and their day of agony was completed when they had Eamon O'Hara redcarded.