Fermanagh’s Darren McQuade releases the ball to a team mate
Fermanagh 2-14
St Mary’s, Belfast 0-12
A potent first half performance paved the way for this solid Fermanagh success on Monday evening over visiting third level side St Mary’s, Belfast at a cold Brewster Park.
Within five minutes of the throw in, full forward Sean Quigley had hoisted the Erne side into a convincing lead, a goal and two points from the Roslea player and by the interval the home side had surged a convincing eleven points clear.
Over those thirty five minutes Quigley had been regularly on target and reached the break with a tally of two goals and at least half a dozen points to his personal credit.
Fermanagh had been much the dominant side over the initial twenty to twenty five minutes though as the game headed towards the interval, the students did begin to make some impact.
With some strong showings from Emmet Bradley and Jerome Johnson in the half forward line and with Ciaran McGeery also looking very sharp the Belfast college picked up half a dozen points over the run in.
On the changeover there was, as anticipated, wholesale changes in the Fermanagh lineout and over the second half the scoring rate was to sag. In fact it was not until the final quarter that the Erne squad did pick up the thread again with a quickening finish that coughed up a number of late points from Paul McCusker, Daniel Kille, Tomás Corrigan and Darren McQuade.
So it was the opening half which had the better of the Erne displays though the majority of the scores did come from just the one source, namely the impressive Quigley in the full forward line.
His second goal around the twenty minute mark was however something of a gift from a less than diliegent St Mary’s defence but there were also neatly taken points from different angles and Fermanagh also had good scores knocked over from Barry Mulrone and Ryan Lyons.
The team looked strong enough around the middle of the park with Ryan and Conall Jones the initial pairing and the half back line of Declan McCusker, Ryan McCluskey and Barry Mulrone provided solid back up.
As noted the team was significantly reshuffled for the second half, among those coming into the fray were James Duffy, Barry McCann, James McMahon, Daniel Kille, Darren McQuade, Ciaran Flaherty while Eoin Donnelly made a late cameo with Tomás Corrigan showing some late enterprise.
St Mary’s had some decent second half spells and initially made some inroads into the deficit they had to deal with but they needed a goal to put the home side under any appreciable pressure and that goal, with the exception of one brief moment, never looked like being coughed up.
A good work out overall for Fermanagh with more or less everyone getting a run out and there should be a promising lineout fielded for Sunday’s clash with Queen’s.
Starting side.
Chris Snow; Michael Jones; James Allen; Tiarnan Daly; Declan McCusker;Ryan McCluskey; Barry Mulrone;Ryan Jones; Conall Jones; Aiden Breen; Ryan Lyons; Sean McManus; Ruairi Corrigan; Sean Quigley; Eoin McManus.