For the second game in-a-row, James Daly had a beaming smile on his face and he was quick to say that the win hadn’t happened by accident;
“We watched Derry in a couple of game this year and we knew what they were at with kickouts, so we went to town on that and we got the goals.”
There was lingering regret too;
“We were aware with fifteen to go that we were going to win the game and we’d heard that Leitrim were losing, so we were aware that we needed to get more scores, maybe we were too eager” he says but it’s hard not to be happy with what his team had just achieved.
“Look, it was a brilliant, brilliant performance, these girls have worked really, really hard since the Leitrim game. Some contrast from where we were four weeks ago in Ballinamore.
“That performance today, it was just first class.
“ We have some serious talent, so many young girls, there’s an unbelievable future here for Fermanagh Ladies football.
“I’m so happy for all the girls, so proud of the work they’ve put in.”
Before the game Daly made a few changes, which he explains, saying;
“We’ve been training for the last two weeks and looking at different things.
“Molly had played full back before, we put her in there today and she did a hell of a job.
“Dee has been playing corner back which didn’t really suit her, she held the line really well today, allowed Shannan McQuade and Sarah McCarville to push up in support of attack.
“Megan was injured today; we’ve been struggling to bring in another goalkeeper.
“Cleona is actually a corner back but she’s done a lot in goals in her youth and we just needed to look at her. She’s a great girl, got a very safe pair of hands. It was only on Friday night that we decided to play her.”
Regarding the decision to start against the slope, he explained;
“It was to take the wind, the fact that we don’t kick the ball much means that playing up or down the slope doesn’t really come into it, we play a lot of ball through the hand.”
When asked what he would be saying in the run up to the semi-final he was forthright in response;
“The same thing we said from day one.We knew what we wanted to do, we knew what we were trying to do, we just wanted to play a particular brand of football and we’re getting better and better.
“We’ve brought Ryan Hyde in as forwards coach and he has them moving really well, it’s good to watch. We’re looking forward to it.”