FERMANAGH may be well in the promotion hunt in Division Three but assistant manager Ryan McMenamin admits efforts to improve their defensive steel are still a work in progress.
Having built a reputation for being hard to beat over several years, they saw that crumble in Pete McGrath’s final year as they struggled with a winter of defensive losses.
Having conceded just six goals in the National League in 2016, that figure doubled last year, with the rot most evident when they uncharacteristically leaked four goals in Kildare in a disorganised display.
The early signs on their improvement have been mixed. They’ve conceded three goals in their opening two league games this term and have kept just two clean sheets in the first six overall.
But one of those was against Tyrone, where a steely defensive showing with just 14 men for a long time kept Mickey Harte’s usually high-scoring outfit to just 0-8, albeit that was still enough to win by double scores.
Former Tyrone defender McMenamin, who is serving alongside Rory Gallagher, says that the players had shown a willingness to solve their defensive woes.
“I don’t know what went on last year, we never asked, but it’s one of the things we looked at that they’d conceded 12 or 14 goals in the league last year.
“It was something we wanted to address, probably not just steel wise, we just wanted to be defensively sound.
“We’re probably not defensively sound yet either, because we’ve conceded three goals in the last two games. There’s a lot to work with, a lot of good players.
“Against Tyrone, it was more probably we were down to 14 and Tyrone were forcing the point, and we did play a lot of boys behind the ball, more out of necessity to stop Tyrone.
“The fellas are working hard and I think they knew themselves, it was one of the points they did say to us, that they conceded a lot of goals last year. It’s probably more the players themselves, that they’ve bought in.
“They do watch a lot of football and they’re watching what the top teams have done. Tyrone do get numbers behind the ball and they do make it hard for teams to score.
“You probably only have to look at the Dublin full-forward line, they’re probably the best defenders Dublin have. If it’s good enough for the Dublin full-forward line, it should be good enough for the Fermanagh full-forward line.
“We know we’re a right bit off being the finished experience, but the boys themselves pointed out that they’d conceded too many goals last year. They’re trying to knuckle down and concede less.”
The Ernemen are one of three teams sitting on four points, although victory this weekend in their rescheduled game with Sligo would propel Fermanagh joint-top alongside pacesetters and promotion favourites Armagh.
Their two wins so far have come at the expense of Wexford and Offaly, who both look set for a struggle to keep their heads above water in the third tier.
McMenamin concedes that while it has been a promising start to the new era, there is an element of not knowing quite where they stand yet.
“Probably we don’t [know where we stand], that’s a fair assumption. We were looking forward to playing Sligo at the weekend to see where we are at, because they’re a very good team with four or five great forwards.”
