Permutations: How can the Mayo Ladies make the quarter-finals?

When the Cork team bus rolls into MacHale Park on Saturday afternoon for their meeting with Mayo, both sides will be well aware of what's at stake.

One side will come off the turf in Castlebar toasting their progression in the All-Ireland series while the other will move one unwanted step towards the relegation trap-door. The prospect of being relegated to the Intermediate Championship will become very real for the loser of Saturday's encounter.

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There are plenty of permutations afoot in terms of how proceedings could play out. We’ve done our best to outline the possibilities.

The first one is obvious, a win for either the Green and Red or The Rebels will secure their spot in the draw for the last eight.

However, if the game ends in a draw, scoring difference will not be the deciding factor when it comes to seeing who will progress. The number of points scored in the game between the sides will be the decision-maker.

For example, let’s say the game finished Mayo 0-16 Cork 1-13. In that event, Liam McHale’s charges would be the ones progressing at the expense of their Munster counterparts due to scoring 16 points as opposed to Cork’s 13.

Should both sides score the same number of points, for example, if the game ended 0-12 apiece, then the deciding factor would be the score difference across the whole All-Ireland Group Stage.

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In that event, Mayo would advance. Their score difference would read -6, while Cork’s would be one worse with -7.