Fermanagh Football & Hurling

[ExiledGael]

Think fermanaghandsam is prob right with the first statement, and definitely right with the second. I'd say o'rourke has his homework well done and knows the craic with quigley. With that in mind it would be disastrous to bring him into the panel just before championship. EG, be careful of boys like that, who love to act like they're in the know...he wasn't drinking at the time, was he?

Don't they say the truth comes out with the drink! Just wondered was there anything in it. Don't think he'll ever have what it takes to play for the county anyway.

[tintin25]

See according to the Irish News that Shane McCabe back on the panel. He'd hardly be starting?

[haranguerer]

couldnt see it, tho he'll prob come on. Check out the ferm v mon thread, theres reportsof him been bought out of his glens contract. Dunno how much reliance i'd place on that, esp given that its downtime for the IFA currently, contract could well have just been for yr anyway.

[ODYWER]

Think that Malachy has a wee surprise for us on Sunday.
A former friend of Noel Edmonds was seen on Brewster with the Fermanagh panel on the niveau pitch in Enniskillen.
In some shape too.

[ExiledGael]

Think that Malachy has a wee surprise for us on Sunday.
A former friend of Noel Edmonds was seen on Brewster with the Fermanagh panel on the niveau pitch in Enniskillen.
In some shape too.

Strange first post
I presume you've a clue in there somewhere, but I haven't a notion what you're on about.

[Pangurban]

Good luck on Sunday lads, you can do it.

[haranguerer]

Think that Malachy has a wee surprise for us on Sunday.
A former friend of Noel Edmonds was seen on Brewster with the Fermanagh panel on the niveau pitch in Enniskillen.
In some shape too.

'Niveau' - french for 'level', or did you mean 'nouveau', new? Or were you just locked?? Thats old news about Mr Blobby taking the warm-up anyway...

[KIDDO 4]

False starts: since losing the All Ireland semi-nal to Mayo in 2004, Marty McGrath has started just 40 per cent of Fermanagh's championship matches, including just one Ulster game FOR those of you interested, there's a fairly standard procedure when it comes to interviewing northern footballers. You sit down over a coffee (or BLT and chips in the case of this week's subject), are asked not to make too much of a deal over anything they are about to say before they proceed with similar subtlety to a chisel and lump hammer combination. Today the request is no different but given what's happened in recent times it's a little hard to pass it off with a wink and a gentle nudge. Here's why. It's been quite a few years since Marty McGrath's body told him to stop the world because he needed to get off. In 2005 he did just that and only now has he hopped back on.

The series of unfortunate events couldn't have begun at a worse time. In 2003, Fermanagh emerged from the basement like a long-lost childhood toy. At a time when footballing heavies would kick down the door to get in, Fermanagh would tip-toe their way through a window around back. They could never go through you, but more often than not, they'd go around you. A year on and they'd blown an All Ireland semi-final with Mayo but when the All Star committee got down to work, McGrath was the sure thing when it came to midfield. Sean Cavanagh was his number two.

Since then, everything that could go wrong, has, with McGrath starting just 40 per cent of Fermanagh's championship outings since 2004, including just one Ulster game. Beside the leading lights of centrefield, at 26 he's seen as little more than a 40 watt nowadays purely because he hasn't been around. It began with a simple viral infection, his asthma causing a delay in recovery sufficient to put him out of the 2005 championship opener against Armagh. By the time he got back, summer was over. As for 2006, we'll let him tell you about the heart problems himself.

"The very first time I noticed anything I was 16, playing minor championship in Cavan.

I felt the heart racing and rushing and it happened a couple of times after, even in Croke Park, like the quarter-final against Armagh in '03. Mind you, Enda McNulty knocked it right out of me. One night it got real bad and the doctor gave me a monitor but nothing happened so I took it off. Then another night I was coming in and the heart started racing so I just put it on and caught it racing and turned out there was extra tissue in the heart. After that it was up to Dr Joe Galvin in the Mater in Dublin.

"Not that I was worried mind, sure it'd nearly been 10 years at this stage and if something terrible was going to happen it would have happened by then. There were a couple of operations. The first one was two-and-a-half hours and didn't work, the second one was five-anda-half hours but the worst part was I was awake for them. I was glad I got through the second one because it was tough but sure that's only at the time. Could be worse. Anyway the first one went in through the groin, second time through the shoulder and it's strange looking around and them operating.

"They have you relaxing at the start. There was one time at the start and I looked at my pulse and it was 46 and I was thinking, 'Jaysus, I must be fair fit'. Midway through I looked at the pulse again and it was 240. They have to get the heart rate up to get to the extra tissue.

Funny thing was, I picked up an ankle injury that season that kept me out for longer.

Was the last thing we did in training one night, I caught my ankle on the back of Mark Murphy's calf and when I came down I felt a pull. As soon as the sock came off I went up like a balloon. But sure every footballer does an ankle sometime."

As Fermanagh disappeared back into the pack, he became part of the sideline furniture. Yet last year it got worse, after what he describes as a "fight with a digger which I lost badly". Down a drain on the home farm laying electrical cables, and with a JCB on a nearby hill, it swung around at full speed and the bucket caught him square on the side of the face. Dazed and confused he thought the driver had lobbed some of his lunch at him and roared, 'What the f**k are you throwing apples at me for?' When he got up to see the blood streaming from his nose he suggested the doctor but others knew better and he realised they were right when he sat up from a hospital table with the worst pain he'd ever known.

"At the time, my father just put me in the van and I said, 'Sure we'll go to the doctor, why bother with the hospital?' Thankfully we went though. But with the blood streaming, the eye starting to close and my head splitting, all they gave me was paracetamol.

The doctor wasn't going to scan it, he didn't even know what I'd been hit by, started asking me what a digger was. It was a Saturday evening and that's why they didn't want to call anyone in to do the scan. Glad they did though because it was fractured.

I missed the rest of the championship. I was mad to play against Meath but Charlie Mulgrew wasn't going to throw me in. It did take it out of me because I wasn't right for the rest of the year."

You've been unlucky, you ask. The answer is helped out by a big broad smile. "Aye but sure could be worse. Like I remember going out to Malawi in October 2006. We built a community centre over there, myself and James Sherry and Liam McBarron and a few others. Over there, they have nothing and are happy. We have nothing and complain. Like I've had a couple of bad years but nothing major."

His attitude is so laid back and his injury record so striking that you're at times worried he could fall off the chair. If not the four horsemen could prance by the window only for him to stay focused on the bacon, lettuce and tomato. Then you mention Fermanagh these past few years, where the collective disappointment has been just as prevalent as his own tribulations, and he sits forward.

"I remember coming out after the All Ireland semi-final and going back to the hotel. There were a load of people telling us well done and I just kept the head down. My own mother stepped out in front of me and I just couldn't handle it. Kept walking. Jesus it was tough but that's still fresh in the mind and it shouldn't be.

That's four years ago and we've let the time pass too easily. I think we listened too much to the talk, bought into the hype and just presumed we were giving it our best in years since. I can tell you looking back we weren't. We weren't working as hard as we should.

"Like when Malachy O'Rourke came in he just said that he was going to take a professional approach and he wanted everyone to buy into it. It should have been there all the time but anyway, I think the players have bought into it so far. Now though is the time that will tell us if we have really bought into it."

There's a story he tells of some friends from his small village of Ederney over near the Donegal border who bought a Peugeot for £60, painted it green and white and drove it to Croke Park in 2004 in a show of support. A few years ago they tried to auction it off for the club, but when no one was bidding they just bought it back themselves. "It's been sitting in a garage since, won't be in Brewster Park and probably will never be seen unless we got back to Croke Park. It's time it got back on the road."

Much like himself and much like Fermanagh in general then.













 







         
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[haranguerer]

That is a classic interview!! Gonna put it on the 'journalist write-off thread - where'd it come from kiddo?

[haranguerer]

Sure i see you're dodgin about that thread yourself, I'll leave you to throw it on with the source. Right, off to ekn!!!

[FermPundit]

Owens comeback to boost Ernemen   
Barry Owens had heart surgery back in January
Fermanagh football has received a further boost with the news that Barry Owens is set to make his comeback to action this weekend.

Twice All Star Owens had surgery in January to correct a slight heart defect and missed the entire NFL and Sunday's Ulster SFC win over Monaghan.

However, Owens could line out for his club team Teemore this weekend.

Teemore face Tempo on Friday in a Fermanagh League game and have another fixture against Brookeboro on Sunday.

Fermanagh PRO Deirdre Donnelly told BBC Sport that Owens "has resumed light training" but was unable to shed any further light on the prospect of him lining out for his club this weekend.

At the time of the operation, it was stated that he was likely to be out of action for around four months.

Fermanagh will play either Donegal or Derry in the Ulster semi-final on Saturday 21 June.

Excellent news. If it's true then he's back playing a lot sooner than I had anticipated.

[KIDDO 4]

Fermanagh's ferocious commitment knocks Monaghan out of their stride
SEAN MORAN at Brewster Park


)ULSTER SFC FIRST ROUND/Fermanagh 2-8 Monaghan 0-10:  ULSTER CUSTOM reasserted itself in emphatic fashion yesterday in Enniskillen. In the recent years of Armagh's and Tyrone's stable grip on the championship something of the old iconoclasm passed out of the game in the province. But here we had the big story from last year's All-Ireland series reaching the end of this season's new chapter before the end of May.

There was foreboding from Monaghan's point of view in the lead-up to this match. They had played a full deck through the National League and fallen away in the critical closing hands.

Then they had to come to Brewster Park on the day of its reopening to face a home team that had closed the deal in its own division and under the meticulous management of Malachy O'Rourke were confident and well stacked after a league campaign shuffling together a strong squad.

Monaghan needed to show all the tenacity of last year in harrying the will to win out of their opponents and play to the strengths of their full forwards. But in the end they only managed such prescriptions for about 10 minutes in the second half after which the concession of a second, messy goal re-orientated the match onto Fermanagh's axis.

The home side were the ones who demonstrated the ferocious commitment never to allow their opponents settle into the game and their zeal upset Monaghan in every sector of the field. Referee Derek Fahy was punctilious in punishing fouls and this militated against the visitors rather than the more disciplined home team.

Both sides switched around their line-ups before the start albeit to no great surprise. Gary McQuaid came in at centre back and Donal Morgan in the corner in place of Darren Hughes and Paul McGuigan whereas Fermanagh replaced Shane McDermott with Liam McBarron, threw the Kilmacud man in at full forward and repositioned captain Martin McGrath at centrefield.

McGrath and Mark Murphy definitely had the better of Eoin Lennon and Dick Clerkin at centrefield but it wasn't a decisive superiority because there wasn't a great deal of clean possession. Where the match turned was on Monaghan's decreasing percentages on breaking ball.

They had started reasonably well in terms of possession but the distribution into the forwards wasn't good. Build-up was too often laboured and when ball did get through Fermanagh's defence was alert and tight.

The winners were also unexpectedly economical in attack for the periods in which the match was open. Towards the end there was a good deal of wild shooting but the match was over by then.

Fermanagh got off to a good start. In the third minute McBarron, whose awkward, physical style disrupted Monaghan throughout took advantage of a bouncing ball that the defence failed to clear to bustle home a goal. That score established a pattern of Monaghan trying to reduce the deficit but never actually closing it. From the time McBarron's goal rippled the net, the home side were always in front.

Ryan Keenan, who with Eamon Maguire in the corners of the attack showed well for ball and posed constant problems, kicked a couple of frees while Maguire and Ciarán McElroy scored from play to keep the scores climbing.

Monaghan's All Star attacker Tommy Freeman had been injured in an accident at work during the week and his participation was touch and go but although he was undoubtedly subdued, he wasn't getting a decent supply to work with in the first place.

Both teams were also coping with a blustery wind that appeared, judging by the wides count, to hinder Monaghan in the first half - for instance Paul Finlay's close-range miss from a free - and their opponents in the second. At half-time Fermanagh were four clear, 1-5 to 0-4.

The one period of the match in which Monaghan seriously threatened was the third quarter. Three unanswered points got the margin down to the bare minimum until another Keenan free stretched it back to two, 1-6 to 0-7.

The match might have turned in the 40th minute had Shane Goan not scrambled back to clear the ball off the line after Vincent Corey had knocked the ball out of Ronan Gallagher's hands.

Two was the margin when disaster befell Monaghan in the 55th minute. Keenan shot for a point and his kick drifted across the goal. It wasn't cleared and Ciarán McElroy pounced for Fermanagh's second goal and all Monaghan's hard work at reviving the contest had just gone down the drain.

Fermanagh opened the throttle and dominated the rest of the match. McGrath was the dominant figure in the middle but his half lines swarmed all over the sector and Monaghan could hardly buy a serviceable ball.

When the ball was worked forward, Fermanagh's defence was more than equal to the increasingly dispirited challenge. Manager Séamus McEnaney tried his various bench options but his team's familiar pressure play and high-energy game had never really got going.

Fermanagh will play the winners of next week's Donegal-Derry showdown. Ulster moves on without Monaghan.

FERMANAGH: 1. R Gallagher; 2. S Goan, 3. H Brady, 4. P Sherry; 5. D Kelly, 6. R McCloskey, 7. T McElroy; 8. M Murphy, 14. M McGrath; 15. C McElroy (1-1), 11. J Sherry, 12. M Little (0-1); 13. E Maguire (0-1), 24. L McBarron (1-0), 10. R Keenan (0-3, frees). Subs: 22. S McCabe (0-1) for J Sherry (47 mins), 26. M Keenan (0-1) for C McElroy (61 mins), 9. S McDermott for Brady (70 mins).

MONAGHAN: 1. S Duffy; 24. D Morgan, 3. JP Mone, 2. D Mone, 5. D Freeman (capt), 20. G McQuaid, 4. N Farrell, 5. D McArdle; 8. E Lennon (0-1), 10. D Clerkin; 9. P Finlay (0-3, one free), 13. R Woods, 11. S Gallogly; 12.C McManus (0-1), 14. V Corey (0-1), 15. T Freeman (0-3, two frees). Subs: 28. C Hanratty (0-1) for Woods (half-time), 19. R Ronaghan for McManus (55 mins), 6. D Hughes for Morgan (60 mins), 13. R Woods for Gallogly (67 mins).

Referee: Derek Fahy (Monaghan).

[KIDDO 4]

O'Rourke's men show they learned lessons of the league
SEAN MORAN

MALACHY O'ROURKE wore the contented demeanour of a man for whom most things had gone to plan. His Fermanagh team had energetically defused opponents who had arrived packed tight with regrets about last year's All-Ireland quarter-final defeat by Kerry and determined to use the angst as fuel for a strong season.

"The boys have worked very hard all year," he said. "We came here expecting to put in a big performance. We were going into the unknown a wee bit given that Monaghan were one of the top teams in the country last year. We had done well in Division Three but didn't know what it would be like coming up against a team like Monaghan."

Fermanagh's NFL campaign had comfortably delivered promotion but was deprived of the decoration of the Division Three title because of the concession of three goals in the final. According to O'Rourke, the team had treated the experience as a useful diagnostic.

"I thought our defence was strong all through," he said. "They didn't give away many frees, which was a big thing because we knew they had two very good free-takers. The last day against Wexford we conceded three bad goals, so we worked on that and our defence was probably a lot tighter."

While Fermanagh move on to the Ulster semi-final, Monaghan had been emptied by the setback, which side-tracks them into the qualifiers in all of eight weeks.

Manager Séamus McEnaney emerged to talk to the media, waiting until all interested parties had gathered respectfully around - "to get the pain over with", as he put it.

"I'm very disappointed. We seemed to lack intensity and conceded two very bad goals, which was probably the difference in the end. In fairness, we weren't at the races for long periods today and Fermanagh could have beaten us by more.

"Absolutely no way did we underestimate them. The question was: would we be able to hang on in the battle for 68-70 minutes? Unfortunately we were too far away with 68 minutes gone.

"We felt we were really motivated coming into this game. Now, I know that doesn't explain what we've seen in the last 75 minutes, but lads, listen, the bottom line is these lads have given up the last five or six months of their lives for today's game and that's wild disappointing for everyone.

"That part of it is down the drain for us. We would like to be preparing for the high road, but we have to prepare now for the low road and battle our way back into it."

They had coped with the unwelcome distraction of All Star forward Tommy Freeman injuring himself at work during the week.

"Yes, there was a danger that Tommy wouldn't play," said the manager. "He was completely out of contention on Thursday. He got a nail straight through his hand on Thursday and it wasn't taken out until Friday evening. He spent two nights in hospital, but anything that came into him today I thought he did quite well. That didn't affect our performance."

And the old standard in these days of the back door: will it be hard to lift them for the qualifiers?

"The next four or five days will tell a lot, but these lads aren't going to walk away from it easy."












       

[haranguerer]

What about this weekends games. Anyone got fixtures and predictions there?

[FermGael]

Friday 30th May

SFL @ 8.00pm
Manor House Hotel SFL Div. 1
St. Patricks v Derrygonnelly (Derrygonnelly)
Lisnaskea v Brookeboro (Lisnaskea)
Belcoo v Newtownbutler(Belcoo)
Devenish v Enniskillen(Enniskillen)
Teemore v Tempo (Teemore)

Fermanagh Herald SFL Div. 2
St. Josephs v Erne Gaels(St Josephs)
Aughadrumsee v Roslea(Roslea with about 4 men sent off)
Kinawley v Derrylin (Kinawley)

Sunday 1st June

SFL @ 3.30pm
Manor House Hotel SFL Div. 1
Derrygonnelly v Devenish (Derrygonnelly)
Tempo v St. Patricks (Tempo)
Newtownbutler v Lisnaskea (Draw)
Brookeboro v Teemore (Brookeborough)
Enniskillen v Belcoo (Enniskillen)

Fermanagh Herald SFL Div. 2
St. Josephs v Aughadrumsee (St Josephs)
Erne Gaels v Derrylin (Erne Gaels)
Irvinestown v Kinawley(Kinawley)