IT’S Brewster Park. It’s the Tailteann Cup quarter-finals. And for captain Declan McCusker, it’s hard not to feel the déjà vu.
Twelve months ago, Fermanagh were in this very spot — one win from Croke Park — only to see Antrim flip the script in the second half and send the Erne men crashing out.
Now, with home advantage secured once again, Fermanagh have a chance at redemption. Saturday’s meeting with Sligo (5pm) marks a fresh opportunity — and a first Championship clash between the two counties.
“It’s the same situation as last year when we had Antrim coming to Brewster Park,” says McCusker. “We needed to win to get to Croke Park. We had a great first half, but the less said about the second half the better.
“We need to learn from that. We were in a great position, and we threw it away. Having experienced it this year, the boys are all mad to get back to Croke Park again — and we know what’s ahead of us now. If we can get a win this week, we’re back there for a semi-final.”
This time around, Fermanagh carry the momentum of their first win at Croke Park in over two decades, dispatching Wexford 0-25 to 1-17. That sealed top spot in their group, bypassed the preliminary quarters and secured Saturday’s home tie.
While Fermanagh rested up however, Sligo were coming through a 1-27 to 2-19 shootout with Carlow at Kilcoyne Park. With eight different scorers, including 0-8 from the ever-dangerous Niall Murphy, Tony McEntee’s side will arrive with firepower.
And McCusker isn’t underestimating the visitors.
“We played them in the league this year and it was a tight game,” he says. “We were well behind in the second half, then we hit seven in a row with a couple of two-pointers, and we were very lucky to get a draw out of it.
“They’ve got to the semi-finals of the Tailteann Cup twice, so they’ve a good record. They had a poor start to the league with a lot of injuries, but they picked up towards the end and did very well to survive. Now, they’ve more boys back. It’ll be a tough, tough game.
“They’ve Niall Murphy up front, he’s one of the best forwards in the country, very experienced, and they’ve plenty of others as well. There’s a lot of dangers and we’ll have a good look at them this week.”
Fermanagh, for their part, are the last Ulster team standing in the competition after Antrim’s heavy loss to Wexford. A reminder, McCusker acknowledges, of how quickly things can shift.
“We’ve seen this year with the so-called smaller counties, when you’re missing a couple of players or whatever, it can make a wild difference. A lot of the squads don’t have the same depth as the bigger counties.
“We played Antrim in the league, it was a tough game, and we beat them by a point — but they got relegated and had a poor enough Tailteann from what they would’ve expected.
“Hopefully we can learn from last year, because they came out in the second half when we were in control and turned the game. Then, we couldn’t get it back — similar to the Down game this year.
“These are things we have to learn from, because this game will be tight going down the stretch, and we’ll have to step up at the crucial times.”
He was full of praise for the Croke Park performance against Wexford, particularly the standout display from Conor Love, but knows Sligo will be better prepared.
“The second half performance we’d be happy enough with, but Conor Love was outstanding. If you take his scores out of it, it could’ve been a different story.
“No doubt Sligo will look at that and they’ll try to stifle him, so the rest of us are going to have to step up. If ‘Curly’ gets a bit of space, he can do damage — but I don’t think they’ll give him the same space Wexford did.”
McCusker believes the Ulster Championship loss to Down, though bitter, can serve as a marker.
“There were a lot of positives to the Down game,” he says.
“Sometimes when you lose it’s hard to see them at the time, because you’re so disappointed. But when you look at what Down are doing now, going into the weekend with a chance to top their Sam Maguire group, it shows the level they’re at.
“We take the positives from it and from the performance against Wexford. But at the same time, when you look at the likes of the performance against Carlow, you can see when you’re not performing at the level you know you can, you get caught out by teams at this level. We need to be 100 percent on it.”
And with Saturday’s game back on home turf, McCusker is hoping the Erne crowd can play their part.
“I know a lot of Fermanagh ones went down to Croke Park which was great to see.
“Now we’ve got home advantage, we really want to make that count and to do that we need a good crowd out. Hopefully we’ll get it at the weekend.”