Amidst the rain and hail at the Bawnacre on Sunday afternoon, Fermanagh ladies put in a hard shift against Antrim to get their first competitive win under new manager James Daly.
The victory means a league semi final is still very much on the cards for the Erne ladies.
“We know Antrim are possibly the benchmark in junior football, the girls are buzzing but it’s one win. We’ll be doing our best now to keep the feet on the ground because we have to beat Derry and then we’re hoping that Leitrim will beat Antrim.”
Fermanagh has no game this weekend but Daly says they have lots to work on in preparation for that Derry game.
“I know the conditions were really poor on Sunday, the wind, the rain, the hail, but we’ve so much to work on. When we look back on it, we made so many mistakes ourselves, yes we can blame the conditions but it wasn’t all the conditions.”
Fermanagh was without Aisling O’Brien last weekend as she had other commitments and Daly says he is “still working” on getting some of the more experienced players back in the squad. Bar Andrea Gordon and Brenda Bannon, Daly’s team is very young and he believes the players would learn a lot from the likes of Courteney and Erin Murphy, Roísín O’Reilly and Aisling Maguire if he could retain their services this season.
“We are so young and our top players are 19, 20, 21 and they could do with a wee bit of leadership at times.
“We’re going to keep working to get the best team on the field for Fermanagh ladies.”
Fermanagh will take huge encouragement from last weekend’s victory, they’ll train Friday night and on Sunday they’ll hold an in-house match “where we’re finding we’re ironing out our creases and our problems, so that’s what we’ll be working on over the next few sessions as we get ready for Derry” says Daly.