A defeat in any game is hard to accept but it is particularly difficult when you underperform and yet come close to snatching a result. The ‘great effort’ slaps on the back count for nothing when that final whistle sounds and you’re on the wrong end of the result. 

 

On Saturday, for just over 50 minutes, Fermanagh looked lost for ideas and downright mediocre at times, but once they threw caution to the wind in the last 20 minutes, with a little bit of luck, the result could have been different. 

 

Offaly fully deserved to win. For a large part of the game they got the tactics right. They worked back in numbers, not quite an all-out defensive set up but an effective one , before breaking out together at pace. It was this pace coming in numbers that we have struggled with over the course of this league campaign and Anton Sullivan took full advantage down our right side.