By tea-time on Sunday, two counties' involvement in the football championship will be over for 1998.

The sprawling competition takes five months to complete 33 ties and for the contestants in Leinster's preliminary pool, there is - as well as the tantalising prospect of reaching the comparative big time of a first-round match with Laois - the immediate risk of spending a very quiet summer.

That bleak consideration, rather than the phenomenal success of last year's preliminary pool graduates Offaly, forms the greatest pressure on Longford, Wexford, Westmeath and Carlow. Two of the counties, Carlow and Wexford, ended the National League campaign graded for next season's Division Four.

In Wexford's case the campaign ended pointless but manager Cyril Hughes isn't despondent. "It was a difficult section. We had the league holders and All-Ireland champions, two provincial champions, as well as Offaly, the team that won it, and we played well for long stretches of the matches.

"Against Kerry, Dublin and Sligo, we were well in contention until near the end. We were in front of Offaly after 35 minutes. Our problem has been not knowing how to win when we had the chance. If we'd more experience of winning, we could have finished those games but I am happy with the state of preparedness."

Twelve months ago the team was very unlucky not to advance in the championship meeting with Westmeath at New Ross. Having lost their influential forward Scott Doran to injury before the match, the team was deprived of their best player on the pitch during the opening stages when Leigh O'Brien was sent off.

Both teams finished the match with 14 men - Westmeath's Anthony Coyne having got the line even earlier - but Wexford were only caught at the very end when a needlessly conceded 45 gave the visitors a draw.

"We kicked the first match away," says Hughes of last year's championship. "We gave it away. It would make you tear your hair out. We should have won and that would have been a major boost."

Longford, their opponents on Sunday, are managed by former Monaghan boss Michael McCormack, a native of Longford and a former coach of Slashers.

"They put in a tremendous effort all through the league campaign," he says. "But the biggest problem here is that we haven't won a championship match in eight years. There's only three players on the panel who know what it's like to win a championship match.

"We did alright in the league, well against Derry and Meath, but we died at the end of that one and conceded 1-4 in injury time. Last year we were a Division Four side but now we've got back to Division Three which is a step in the right direction."

Eamonn Coleman, the former Derry All-Ireland winning manager, was in charge of Longford for the previous two years. Under his management the team reached the 1996 All-Ireland B final but lost in a replay to Fermanagh.

"The team collapsed after that B final," says McCormack, "and didn't win a match after in the league. But it's hard to maintain momentum in a county like Longford. Looking down the road, I reckon it'll take three years to get it together."

Carlow went through convulsions before Christmas when manager Bobby Miller resigned over the county board's decision to disband the supporters' club. Players withdrew from a fixture against Mayo which had to be refixed for the new year. Former Tipperary manager Paddy Morrissey stepped into the breach.

"I was thinking about that (his appointment)," says Morrissey, "because I knew people would be asking me questions about it all week. I was an outsider and the first night they trained and I watched. I spoke afterwards and said `I know nothing about what happened, I wasn't involved and I'm not going to say anything about it at any stage'. The players never mentioned it to me since.

"People say it would be great to get out of the weaker section because it would be great to get a crack at Laois. Carlow always plays well against Laois, they always rise their game. But I'm not from Carlow and I can't get worked up about playing Laois yet. My priority is to go up to Mullingar and win a championship match."

Westmeath took Offaly to a replay last year and have since enjoyed a reasonably good league campaign, qualifying for next season's Division Three and holding Derry to a draw.

According to manager Brendan Lowry, appointed as Barney Rock's successor last autumn, the campaign was satisfactory. "It was okay, Division Three but we could have done better. We finished well even if it was against Antrim and London but we could have done better."

The county's All-Ireland minor title of three years ago has left the senior team with some hope for the future. "I have seven of the `95 minors involved. They have more belief in themselves than the older fellas and they're a bit more easygoing which might seem odd but they're not as wound up and at the same time it's not easy for them coming in to senior football because there's such expectation.

"The most positive thing about it is that there's a lot of youth in the team and the commitment is good. They've made a huge effort. My aim is to get to play Laois, to get out of the weaker section. After that, anything is possible."