FERMANAGH clinched the win that manager Kieran Donnelly hopes will ignite their season last weekend and the task for his Ernemen now is to build on it in Saturday’s pivotal clash with Laois.
Like their hosts, Billy Sheehan’s O’Mooremen travel to Brewster Park with three points on the board so victory will allow the winners to throw their hat into the Division Three promotion ring.
Laois were relegated from Division Two last year and began life in the third tier with victory over Mickey Harte’s Louth, then lost to Westmeath but claimed a draw against Antrim.
Donnelly says both teams will see the Enniskillen clash as “a game they can win”.
“There’s nothing between the teams and they’ll come to Brewster Park confident,” he said.
“But we feel that if we can produce the same performance we did on Sunday that we’ll put ourselves in a good position.
“Laois are a very physical team, they’re very direct and they pose loads of threats. They’ve a new manager in Billy Sheehan as well and they have tweaked a few things so there’ll be very little between us and it’ll come down to who maximises their chances at key times of the game.”
Donnelly’s Ernemen lost to Antrim in their opener but have responded well with three points from their last two fixtures and that gradual improvement is understandable given the inexperienced make-up of Fermanagh’s squad this season.
The Fermanagh manager said he was “hopeful of getting a performance” in Longford and his men obliged with a 3-11 to 1-10 victory that included 3-8 in the second half after the first half had ended with Longford 0-8 to 0-3 in front.
“We felt it was an important game going into it,” said Donnelly.
“It’s always a very tough place to go but we felt we had been training well and we were hopeful of getting a performance but we knew from our past history with Longford that there’s never much between us so it was great to get out with a win.
“It’s a new squad – we have a lot of new players in and players who have moved on – and we couldn’t fault their attitude from the very start. But it just takes time for a team to gel and be cohesive in their play so we did feel we need a bit of time for all those things to click.
“In terms of what we could control in terms of training, we felt they were training well and their attitude was good and they were applying themselves well so there was a focus on trying to get a win to ignite our season.”
After an injury setback for goalkeeper Sean McNally, Cian Newman was the latest newcomer to make an inter-county debut and he played a huge role in the win with a fine save from Keelin McGann early in the first half. But it was two goals from veteran forward Sean Quigley that sent Fermanagh on the road to a morale-boosting win.
“Sean has been very reliable for us and he’s always very cool in the one-v-ones,” said Donnelly.
“We scored goals against Wicklow (Quigley got 1-3 in that game) and we had three or four goal chances against Antrim that we didn’t take but they fell to the right man on Sunday and he was very cool with his two finishes.”
