Fermanagh marksman Sean Quigley.
Sean Quigley’s second half introduction against Cavan last day out coincided with an injection of urgency as Fermanagh chased the game.
Unfortunately the Roslea man’s promptings, which included pass of the game to set Marty O’Brien through on goal, weren’t enough to secure the points. That leaves Fermanagh travelling to Connacht facing a game which falls unambiguously in the must-win category.
“We’ve got ourselves into a position where we’re going to Galway and we need the points,” said Quigley. “You don’t want to be going down to the last day of the season fighting relegation, but it’s definitely a game where we think we can go down to Galway and win.
“We were very disappointed with the way we performed against Cavan. We lacked energy and weren’t at the races at all. We’re a much better team than we showed that Saturday night so we’re looking forward to this challenge, but we know it’s a must win game.”
The Westerners are one of the stories of the league. Sitting on three wins they are going into the penultimate round of games pushing hard for promotion. While they may have one eye top flight football, Roslea’s ace sharp shooter believes Fermanagh have the equipment to soften their cough.
“Galway are a great footballing team, but we can get at them and if we can get at them early we can put them on the back foot. They’ve been a wee bit unpredictable this season. They’ve had a couple of hiccups against Derry and Meath and only for that they’d be all but guaranteed promotion, but I think if we can get at them and set down a marker early on, let them know what we’re about it’s definitely a game we can win.”
This game is in Tuam. While Galway don’t much like playing in Salthill themselves, they tend to win there. Facing off in Tuam could be perceived as levelling the playing field in some respects, but Quigley doesn’t believe the pitch will make one bit of odds.
“It’s just another football field,” said the attacker. “I think if we can put them on the back foot and get our confidence levels up then we can really put up a big score against them, beat them and push on towards the Tyrone game and the championship.
“I think if we can get over Galway it’ll be a real confidence booster. After the Cavan game there’s an element of low confidence because we know we’re a lot better than that and we know we can perform at a lot higher standard.
“We’ve trained well all week and we’re looking forward to getting down to Tuam and at the end of the day these are the games you want to be playing in. It’s a high intensity, high pressure game against good quality opposition and that’s only going to make us a better team.”
Galway are under the stewardship of Kevin Walsh once again this term. His management has seen the Tribe significantly develop their defensive smarts. That being the case, some might expect a turgid negative game on Sunday, however Quigley cautions that this Galway side need no map to find their way to the posts.
“When we played Meath up in Enniskillen it was a slogging match. We know how to mix it with teams. But Galway have put up very high scores and conceded high scores. 1-15 [against Armagh] nowadays would be seen as a high score to concede, and on the other hand a high score to register at the other end. They scored 1-18 against Derry, they scored three goals against Laois so they’re a formidable team.
“But if it comes down to a slog we know we can slog out. No point lying, we don’t want it to come down to a shoot out, but if it comes to that we have players who can rack up big scores and hopefully we can hit the net a few times.
“It’s all about getting the win at end of the day and any way we can get over the line and get those vital few points that keep us in division will be fine by me. But we’re looking forward,” said Quigley.