The Leinster ladies drew the first day out against Limerick before losing 2-9 to 1-6 against Louth. They chalked up their first win of the season last week in Fenagh against Derry, running out 4-7 to 1-4 winners. They will be coming up the road looking for a second successive Ulster scalp and Erne sharp-shooter Joanne Doonan says they’ll have to be treated with respect.

“They will be coming in looking to keep their winning run going, but we are just going to have to put it up to them,” said the Kinawley woman. “We won’t be going in complacent or cocky about it. You can’t always rely on the league table to show how teams are going, you have to turn up and judge these things on the day.

“We’re just trying to take each game at a time, especially after the first round when we lost against Antrim, we can’t be going into games complacent.

“But we’re on a good run now and have a good atmosphere in the team and we want to keep that going.”

While Fermanagh are the reigning Junior All-Ireland champions they have had quite a turn over in personnel from last year. Sharon Murphy, Marita McDonald, Maria Connolly, Aisling Moane and Roisin Gleeson are all off the scene at the minute. Taking that into consideration the team have made an impressive start to the new season

“Those players have been massive losses for us,” said Doonan “But the younger girls coming through are definitely stepping up. It great to see that, especially the ones who were there last year. They are building on that experience and it isn’t necessarily the older ones pulling us through games.

“The last day out we were missing Shauna Hamilton who is one of our main players and we were still fit to beat Louth who were top of the table at the time. So it’s great to see people stepping up and taking on responsibility.”

Doonan isn’t shirking her share of the responsibility either, sitting just behind Eimear Smyth in the scoring stats for the season. However the attacking ace believes its a case of many hands making light work.

“I would be confident enough with how I’m going at the minute. But I think the unselfishness of our forward play this year has been really admirable. No one is looking at what their own tally is, it’s just about whoever is on, who is in a better position, that’s who gets it.

“It’s great having the amount of options we do up front. Eimear Smyth is always in the right place and then you have Blaithín coming through too. It’s great to see those girls getting on the score sheet and it isn’t coming down to any one individual.”