Ulster Senior Football Championship quarter-final: Fermanagh 2-8 Derry 3-17
BEFORE the throw-in you sensed Fermanagh were up against it and by the end of minute one any doubt was gone.
As champions tend to do, Derry settled instantly and went hungrily and confidently about their work. Shane McGuigan led the way with 2-5 but the first of their 11 scorers was Eoin McEvoy who took a Brendan Rogers pass on the run and fisted over from the right of the Erne posts.
Three more points, from Padraig McGrogan, goalkeeper Odhran Lynch and then Paul Cassidy, followed as Fermanagh's man-on-man tactics were exposed and the home side had barely had a kick by the time Ryan Jones pulled one back.
“We started the game at a real good intensity,” said Derry manager Rory Gallagher afterwards.
“I suppose when you feel you’re better than the other team it’s important to do. Perhaps Fermanagh would have been coming to try to hang in the game, but we blew it open very early.
“We wanted to hit ground running and take the lead because it makes the game more on your terms. We knew they were going to target Gareth (McKinless), come out pushing and shoving at Shane and players like Paul Cassidy and Ethan (Doherty).
“But the other players came up the field who maybe don’t get the same attention and it’s good to have boys in sync with what they need to do when that happens.”
In the first half the Ernemen lived off scraps. Derry engulfed them and for the first quarter it was a pile-on - every Oak Leafer, including goalkeeper Lynch, pushed into the Fermanagh half and the home side couldn’t get out.
“They really emptied out on us at the start,” said Fermanagh manager Kieran Donnelly.
“We just felt we needed to control the ball a bit better and get a score or two.
“They are an excellent team…That was a day of learning for our young side and we were brave at the start of the second half.”
Read more: How the Fermanagh players rated
Nine points down at the break, Fermanagh were facing a hiding. But they salvaged pride in the second half after a defensive reshuffle and hit back defiantly with a couple of goals from makeshift full-forward Che Cullen.
“I said to the boys after the match that they could be proud of themselves because they kept at it and they had a few excellent scores and could have had a few more,” said Donnelly.
“We have to regroup and approach the Tailteann Cup with positivity. We just felt we were in our shell a wee bit in the first half. Playing against that quality opposition they don’t give you that much time on the ball and they are just so slick in possession.
“Once they went ahead it was hard to get back into the game but we will learn from it, that’s all we can do. We felt we progressed steadily over the last year or two so we want to keep like that.”
Donnelly’s side were three points behind (0-5 to 0-2) when Derry broke through them for their first goal. Ethan Doherty raided down the left and Shane McGuigan broke towards him, took the pass and turned to escape Che Cullen’s desperate clutches. He hammered a right foot shot past Sean McNally.
It was 1-7 to three points and there were eight minutes left in the half when Derry struck again. Cassidy jumped between Lee Cullen and Cian McManus, landed with the ball in his hands and sank the shoe towards goal. Although he dropped the ball, he managed to slip it under McNally to leave 10 points between the sides. Fermanagh were playing for pride from then on.
Read more: How the Derry players rated
To their credit, they salvaged some. Kelm drifted out to the right wing and got a chance to run Chrissy McKaigue. He left him in his wake and added a fine finish but two more points from McGuigan had Derry 2-9 to 0-5 ahead at the interval and in complete control.
The shape of the game changed in the second half as both sides pushed men forward and there was a flurry of early goals. Rogers and Kelm scored at either end in the early stages and then Cian McManus tried his luck from the edge of the square.
The ball fell short and dropped to Cullen who’d been dispatched to full-forward and he buried it.
Whatever hope that gave the home side was immediately snuffed out. Affronted, Derry attacked from the kick-out and Fermanagh sub Declan McCusker sent Benny Heron tumbling as he shaped to shoot. McGuigan rifled the penalty into the corner of McNally’s net.
But Fermanagh hit back again a couple of minutes’ later and again Derry failed to deal with a long ball. McCusker thumped the ball into the square and Ronan McCaffrey grabbed the break and passed to Cullen who buried another one.
The gap was closed to 2-6 to 3-10 but the damage had been done. Fermanagh added two more points while Derry, who called Conor Glass and Chrissy McKaigue ashore well before the end but didn't gave game-time to Ciaran McFaul, finished with half-a-dozen.
Conor McCluskey was the Oak Leafers’ ninth scorer and after Padraig Cassidy and Niall Toner got in on the act, 11 men in red and white had raised a flag.
“Everybody’s got to defend, everybody’s got to attack, when you’ve got the ball and when you don’t,” said Gallagher,
“That’s the flexible way football is now and you have to step up. It’s up to players to have the ability to do that and we think we can.”
McGuigan’s brilliant finish was the final act of a one-sided affair that sends Derry into the semi-finals looking in no mood to surrender the Anglo-Celt.
Fermanagh: S McNally (0-1 45); L Flanagan, C Cullen (2-0), C McManus; J Cassidy, S McGullion, L Cullen; R Jones (0-1), B Horan; A Breen (0-1), R Lyons (0-2 frees), R McCaffrey; U Kelm (0-2), D McGurn, J Largo-Elis
Subs: D McCusker (0-1) for Horan (HT), C McShea for Breen (HT), C Jones for McManus (53), G Jones for Lyons (62), F O’Brien for Largo-Elis (69)
Derry: O Lynch (0-1); C McKaigue, P McGrogan (0-1), C McCluskey (0-1); C Doherty, G McKinless, Padraig Cassidy (0-2); C Glass (0-1), B Rogers (0-1); N Toner (0-1), Paul Cassidy (1-2), E Doherty (0-1); E McEvoy (0-1), S McGuigan (2-5, 1-0 pen, 0-2 frees), N Loughlin
Subs: B Heron for Glass (41), P McNeill for McEvoy (59), B McCarron for McKaigue (62), L Murray for Loughlin (67), D Cassidy for Toner (71)
Referee: Joe Cassidy (Cavan)
Attendance: 6,928
