GalloonBaffoon (Fermanagh) - Posts: 119 - 07/01/2023 17:30:54    2451457

macca999 (Fermanagh) - Posts: 1098 - 07/01/2023 18:18:33    2451464

Long time lurker first time poster. Poor enough fare today albeit the first game of the season and missing an all star midfielder in Conor Glass and Young player of the year nominee Ethan Doherty. Two big misses. Conditions were tough so it was good to get a game under the belts. Young Eoin McEvoy and Lachlan Murray had good games and could be big players this year if they can continue their progression. I hope Fermanagh have a good season, maybe even an outside bet for the Talteann Cup if the draw is favourable.

Jazzyjeff (Derry) - Posts: 156 - 08/01/2023 18:55:55    2451564

So what does everyone think after the two games. Seen positives thought that looked defensively strong, Conceded no goals, scored a goal in each.
Plenty to work on to. But a young team.

ERNEDEVIL (Fermanagh) - Posts: 68 - 09/01/2023 15:01:29    2451726

Decent first half yesterday, should have been much further ahead at HT some bad wides kicked.
Second Half Derry came out with more intensity and won fairly well.

Definitely the return of Che Cullen has strengthened our defence and allowed Johnny Cassidy to go to 6, look more solid.

The lack of scoring threat continues to be a huge issue, only 5 scores yesterday, hard to see where the scores are going to come from as tallies of 8/10 points won't win many matches now in Division 3. Reliance on Sean Quigley has been there a while(he can't play forever sadly) and if misses few league games as likely then the attacking threat could be limited, especially free taking which needs to be 80% accurate to compete.

Hopefully King continues to develop and McGurn is back for that crucial Longford fixture(they scored 3-13 last week)

macca999 (Fermanagh) - Posts: 1098 - 09/01/2023 18:43:17    2451777

Wired2theMoon (Fermanagh) - Posts: 36 - 12/01/2023 14:06:41    2452190

Well said Wired! However, I doubt if it will change Macca as he is frozen it time when it comes to team selection. He forgets that the team needs to refresh itself with more use of new recruits in order to gain experiy and maintain the team going forward.

Anyhow, the main reason I came on today is to question the massive £2.5m plus additional investment in enhancing the white elephant facilities at Lissan mountain top like location that many see at dead in the water.

Instead of investing in top quality county team management, as the Wired poster suggested, the top dogs in our county GAA see the failed Lissan project as the way forward and according to the Herald this week the Win a House draw is drastically short of its of overly ambitious £2.5m target with only a fifth of tickets sold with only a few weeks to go.

With the worst cost of living crisis in decades they are now pressuring each club to sell at least 300 hugely priced tickets at staggering £100.00 each. Are these guys living in the real world?

cillnaile. (Fermanagh) - Posts: 997 - 14/01/2023 13:32:13    2452398

Just highlighting an area that is likely to hinder the team during the national league hugely unless drastic improvement. Poster saying that no half decent forwards in Fermanagh, every county likely has 2/3 decent forwards, but its getting them on pitch that can be challenge, one that Fermanagh always seems to face.
Love, Glynn. McBrien all showed well an county at underage but none have came through to senior level for various reasons.
Would agree that the wides tally and scoring hasnt been up to scratch at all in the last 18 months, Ronan O Neill can hopefully impact this before league as to win a game now we need to be hitting 1-12/15 point tally, the defensive game is dated to extent.

I dont think investing more money in our county management team will solve our lack of scoring power unless they open up a transfer market and we sign Clifford and Walsh on deadline day.

Agree that investing more money in Lissan does seem a bit of waster as site not ideal for such project but its not going to change now sadly. Definitely bit of pressure on Club Eirne as they have alot of tickets to sell to reach the 12,000 ticket target before April

macca999 (Fermanagh) - Posts: 1098 - 17/01/2023 15:58:09    2452884

Coa_gael (Fermanagh) - Posts: 1182 - 17/01/2023 20:14:30    2452916

Very quiet on here, wouldn't think National Football league starting this weekend, maybe shows the low expectations within county for the campaign.

Let's hope McGurn and Quigley are able to be involved on Saturday

macca999 (Fermanagh) - Posts: 1098 - 26/01/2023 18:26:17    2454463

Great win for the lads yesterday. Took me by surprise how comprehensive the win was, should have really won by more only for some wayward shooting in the 2nd half. Quigley and McGurn returning was a huge boost & it's good to see Kelm back flying again. Cullen in FB was excellent as well.

Bailah (Fermanagh) - Posts: 43 - 29/01/2023 12:05:14    2454897

keeper7 (Longford) - Posts: 4088 - 29/01/2023 14:06:18    2454930

Firstly well done to Ederney yesterday on hosting the National League game, great set-up, very organised with parking and lots of stewards to help,very impressive, could certainly have other games there if needed.

Good win for the team, first half was very good yesterday, shooting was very accurate, the late additions of McGurn and Quigley a huge boost before throw in. Ronan McCaffrey was very impressive yesterday, showed for every kick out and started lots of attacks, there was a good speed to the attacks which the excellent Ultan Kelm and Johnny Cassidy helped provide throughout the game, while the presence and effect of Che Cullen at full back was clear, hopefully his injury isnt as serious as it looked.
Both teams conceded alot of frees, im sure this something that management will look at ahead of trip to Offaly as could prove costly in closer games ahead

Second half wasnt as good, alot of poor shooting keeping Longford in the game, on another day a better team would have punished Fermanaghs wastefulness. Midfield had a solid game and Fermanagh won alot of breaking ball which was very encouraging to see.

An important win to settle team into the campaign and can hopefully build on this in Tullamore next week.

macca999 (Fermanagh) - Posts: 1098 - 29/01/2023 20:21:46    2455095

Absolutely .. congrats to Ederney on their facilities and for being excellent hosts for that inter county game. I'd have no problem heading back for another county match there. Pitch surface is excellent .. just might not be great if it's chucking it down
As for the match it's remarkable just how comfortable we were despite all the mistakes and the missed frees we won comfortably. Che badly needed to be fit for rest of season so we should rest him where possible
Need to figure out why McGurn goes well for 30mins then fades out .. I think he could be rotated in and out from edge of square too to mix it up
Need to back that up with another 2 points in tullamore .. satnav says only 2 hour drive but that can't be right

KeshGFC (Fermanagh) - Posts: 334 - 31/01/2023 14:23:15    2455558

Honestly thought Longford would have been better after putting up big scores in their previous matches.

It's not often that we score double figures in a half. But worrying that we only scored 4 points in the 2nd half and that we went 16mins without a score.

To hit eight wides in the 2nd half is not good but at the same time at the least they were creating chances to shoot and were not afraid to have a go, often seen times were players should have had a shoot but instead choosing to pass (normally a backward pass at that) and by then the chance has passed by. It also showed how comfortable we were in that game that we could afford to hit so many wides and still won.

The team played well. Hope Cullen will be ok. The amount of breaking ball we won particularly in the 1st half was the reason we won that game. Let's hope we can play like the way we did in the 1st half against Longford in both halfs against offaly and get another 2points on the board.

ERNEDEVIL (Fermanagh) - Posts: 68 - 31/01/2023 14:28:10    2455561

Best of luck tomorrow in Tullamore lads.

Che Cullen be a huge miss in terms of leadership and presence, maybe his brother Lee might be able to slot in there, otherwise likely drop Johnny Cassidy back with Decky McCusker in then at 6.


Hopefully keep the scores flying over again tomorrow although I'm sure Offaly won't be as generous tomorrow as Longford were.

macca999 (Fermanagh) - Posts: 1098 - 04/02/2023 15:29:33    2456379

Just back from Tullamore and still trying to figure out what just happened. Truly a bizarre 70 mins well ceratainlyva bizarre first 35 .. with 4scores and about 20 wides shared between 2 teams. I was expecting managers to agree at half time that " next score wins" and save us more torture.
Thankfully a match broke out and scores flowed. But so too did errors for Fermanagh. Spilling possession, inability to pass 5 yards accurately and then in final
Play we couldn't hold possession for more than 10 seconds and cough up point in 6th min of injury time. The efficiency of the match in Ederney is a distant memory
We showed flashes of flowing moves only to spill possession so many times I lost count. Defence did well overall but when various defenders got in to scoring positions u could see they didn't want to be there and shots were poor. But some of our regular shooters dropped a half dozen shots in to keepers arms too
I'm hoping we shake of those errors ahead of down game cause if we do we will be seriously hard to beat .. worry is we may not …. That game had draw written all over it through out second half … staying in a very competitive div3 suddenly seems like a good outcome

KeshGFC (Fermanagh) - Posts: 334 - 05/02/2023 19:56:31    2456749

The_Rat (Fermanagh) - Posts: 50 - 05/02/2023 20:46:42    2456774

That was like watching a different team today in Tullamore today than the one that defeated Longford last week.

Fermanagh were back to slow ponderous play today allowing Offaly to filter back and they only conceded 1 free so scores were hard found.

First half was possibly worst I've ever seen in terms of shooting from Offally especially, about 14 wides kicked between both, fermanagh lucky to have not been 4/5 behind.
Second half slightly better but the amount of unforced turnovers today was shocking, Jones and Horan guilty on a number of occasions.

Game was definitely there for taking but we hadn't the composure or guile to take advantage of it with even Quigley having a very off day by his high standards.

Then after a shocking miss from 20 metre free to win it from Offaly, Fermanagh had possession of ball with 30 seconds on clock and inexplicably played a high risk high ball at halfway line to Ciaran Corrigan which was as expected turned over and Offaly snatched the win. This highlighted a lack of experience and game management to see out and get a point.

Tough game v Down after break allows time to work on today's error riddled game, let's hope they can get back to moving ball quicker and avoiding unnecessary contact(like in ederney) plus hopefully Che Cullen back as missed his drive and presence,if not would play Lee at 3.

Least results went our way with Antrim, Tipp and Longford losing again

macca999 (Fermanagh) - Posts: 1098 - 05/02/2023 21:51:18    2456808

Disappointing result. Both teams showed why they are in the lower divisions. The amount of wides for both teams was shocking, really poor standard. Offaly were lucky to keep all their players on the pitch, should have been at least a red if not three for off the ball incidents. We had a goal disallowed for square ball. Offaly fortuneit to get the goal ball hit the upright going for a point and fell to their forward. Offaly were the better team overall but neither team really deserved to win it. G.Jones made a difference when brought on, should start next game. Quigley was not at the races and dropped a right lock short. Backs did ok(Largo did well) but was a total breakdown on the edge of the oppositions D. Silly decision making, bad passes, afraid to shoot, lack direct running, lack direct ball into the forwards. Slow and playing side wides. Could have tried a couple of high balls on top of the keeper that's were the goal came from. Might be old school but sometimes old school is effective. Not as confident in facing down the next game. We needed a point at least against offaly.

ERNEDEVIL (Fermanagh) - Posts: 68 - 06/02/2023 14:38:17    2456868