Eoin Donnelly lines up a point for Fermanagh at the Athletic Grounds
Midfield was posted as one of the key battlegrounds in the build-up to Saturday’s clash of the division three table toppers in the Athletic Grounds.
Eoin Donnelly and Richard O’Callaghan never once flinched in combat, charging into the exchanges with huge courage and determination. In doing so they earned the admiration of Orchard manager Kieran McGeeney in his post-match comments.
Another massively encouraging display from Fermanagh, but it was almost difficult to get Eoin Donnelly to talk about it. The Coa man is already casting his mind forward to this Sunday’s game against Limerick, wrestling with the kinks in the system that need to be ironed out before that Brewster park contest.
“It’s a case of keeping the run going,” said Donnelly. “Limerick’s going to be another tough test again. We’ll have to do our work on them. We can’t really rest on our laurels. There’s boys who came in there today who pushed the whole thing on and they’re going to be fighting for a place. Anyone who thinks because we got a draw here tonight that we’ve won ourselves anything is mistaken.
“We’re being worked hard and we feel we’re in fairly good nick considering the time of year. There’s more work we can do and the likes of Leon [Carters], Raymie [Johnston] and Brian [Treacy] are doing good work with us. We know that we can go right through to the very end, we showed it tonight.
“But in saying that we don’t want to be giving teams a lead. We do need to work on starting strongly and we’re going to have to do that against Limerick, so that will be a focus next week definitely,” said Donnelly.
The exchanges in midfield in the Athletic Grounds were not for the faint-hearted and as rugged as any Fermanagh have encountered this year, but it was nothing less than Donnelly anticipated.
“It was physical enough, but we expected that, we expect that with any Ulster team so it’s preparation for later in the year. At the minute we’re just happy to come away unbeaten and again push on with another point, but looking to Limerick again next week we still need to win every game, we can’t slip up again,” said Donnelly.
One blot on the Fermanagh copy book was the second half free count. They conceded 13 to Armagh’s seven in the second 35 and Donnelly knows better tackling discipline will be demanded against the Treaty men.
“Armagh were running the ball a lot through the hands, so we were probably putting in a few more tackles than normal. It’s something we work on, good disciplined tackling. The boys will probably give us a bit of a rollicking about that midweek and make sure we don’t do it against Limerick next week, because we can’t really afford to be giving away scoreable chances from frees,” said Donnelly.
Finally coming around to reflect on the valuable away point earned against the Orchard, the Coa midfielder says the four point half-time deficit didn’t faze Pete McGrath’s men.
“It was a strong wind and we knew we weren’t out of it,” said Donnelly. We had been in the lead or drawing in all the games so far, so it was a different half time. But we still knew that we had a big chance in the second half with the wind at our backs and if we could get a few scores we would build up a bit of momentum. It didn’t happen until the last 15 minutes, but when it did the boys did the business.
“The start of the second half we didn’t get off to the start we wanted. We hoped we could have pushed on a bit quicker in the second half when we had the wind at our backs, but it didn’t really happen for us. They were working the ball well and getting in for scoring opportunities.
“They weren’t taking them so we rode our luck for the first 20 minutes, but in the last 15 minutes we were on top. We got the few frees and Sean [Quigley] had the capability to put them over with ease really and I think we deservedly got the draw in the end,” said Donnelly.
One particularly pleasing aspect for the Fermanagh captain was the contribution of the second half subs, evidence of the depth this side is starting to build.
“It was good to see the boys coming on and they weren’t afraid to get stuck in straight away. It would have been very easy to come on and float around, but the boys got involved straightaway. That’s what you want, it’s pushing everyone on and the boys that are starting understand that. The boys on the bench also know that there’s people behind them that are pushing them on too,” said Donnelly.
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