Football

Problems solved as valuable as points earned for Derry and Fermanagh

Fermanagh manager Ryan McMenamin with Paul McIver and Brian McIver before playing Down during the Ulster Senior Football Championship quarter final match played at Brewster Park, Enniskillen on Sunday 8th November 2020. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
Fermanagh manager Ryan McMenamin with Paul McIver and Brian McIver before playing Down during the Ulster Senior Football Championship quarter final match played at Brewster Park, Enniskillen on Sunday 8th November 2020. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin Fermanagh manager Ryan McMenamin with Paul McIver and Brian McIver before playing Down during the Ulster Senior Football Championship quarter final match played at Brewster Park, Enniskillen on Sunday 8th November 2020. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

Allianz Football League Division Three North: Derry v Fermanagh (today, 5pm, Owenbeg, live on GAAGO)

KIERAN McGeeney joked a couple of times last week that the group Armagh found themselves in was "almost incestuous".

To remove the literal definition and apply it in the sporting context, nothing Armagh will do would come close to the ties linking Derry and Fermanagh this evening.

Rory Gallagher took Fermanagh to an Ulster final three years ago. He is now the Derry manager.

On the Fermanagh management team is his brother Ronan, who played together for club and county.

Brian McIver is a former Derry manager, who coached a handful of the men in the opposite corner during his three-year term from 2013 until 2015.

He was also the county's director of football for a spell.

He had his son Paul by his side during his time as manager. Both men are playing a hands-on role in the Fermanagh setup.

These two counties wouldn't traditionally have huge links but as Erne defender Jonny Cassidy said during the week, it's all a sideshow.

The main order of the day is sorting out which of the two takes a massive step towards a semi-final that neither county would have been expected to be this close to.

Which was the bigger shock - Fermanagh's win over Cavan, or the margin of Derry's win in Pearse Park?

Fermanagh are notoriously hard beaten in Brewster Park but didn't have the best of 2020s. They'd lost a few over the winter but it turned out that in Sean Quigley, they had the best-known of hidden secrets.

Fermanagh's problem has long been misdiagnosed. It's not been the absence of a scoring forward.

Sean Quigley, Seamus Quigley and Tomás Corrigan were all lethal when they got sight of the posts.

What Fermanagh have lacked is a forward who could win his own ball and then score. Quigley would, by his own admission no doubt, have struggled in that regard.

But having put in a serious winter and trimmed down into a physical shape he hasn't been in for a long time, Fermanagh may have found their cure.

He kicked nine points off, six from play, off left and right. As one observer put it, he kicked nine points working his ass off.

So he, and the growing Darragh McGurn, may be the answer for a Fermanagh side that looked to have a bit of the bite and belief about them that became their hallmark under Rory Gallagher.

They looked well-organised, fit and lean as they propelled themselves into a position where they'll be disappointed now if they fail to reach a semi-final.

But as much as they might have solved their big problem, Derry might have solved their own too.

The Oak Leaf county hasn't had a natural ball-winning midfielder in almost a decade.

Conor Glass' return home from Australia brought huge expectation that was tempered slightly by his rustiness in the few games at the end of last year.

But in Longford last week, he sparked it all up again. The Glen man looked like the animal that Derry can build their team around.

Emmett Bradley played alongside him and looked fresh too, with Ciaran McFaul at half-forward and Padraig Cassidy attacking from wing-back.

With Shane McGuigan and Niall Loughlin's budding partnership up front progressing too, Derry are in a good place.

A 16-point win at a ground they hadn't been victorious in since 2002 was an eyebrow-raising beginning.

They bring Fermanagh to a refreshed Owenbeg where the main pitch has been under construction for a while and is, by all reports, brilliantly mended.

It will host two teams full of an understated vibrancy.

Derry to shade it by two.