1 Ederney

Could it be anyone else? Well, yes, some would say Derrygonnelly are the best team in Fermanagh, especially as they were the form team in the pre-season competition which was played in the last number of weeks. However, Ederney are reigning champions and therefore deserve to be touted as the top team in the county.

They won last season’s senior championship with a hugely merited victory over the Harps, and they’ll be motivated to show they’re no one-hit wonders. They have quite a number of players on the county team – Declan McCusker and Chris Snow are the most well-known – so we probably won’t see the best from St Joseph’s until later in the year. Recent interviews with their players suggest that they’re very motivated by the prospect of winning more trophies, so it’ll be interesting to see if they can back up their words with action.

2 Derrygonnelly

Derrygonnelly are a wounded animal at the moment, and they’ve been in ferocious form in the ‘club players competition’, winning all four of their group stage matches, though somewhat surprisingly they lost the final to Kinawley.

They had to lose sometime, and they didn’t perform to their best in last year’s championship final (though you’d have to credit Ederney for their part in that). They still have the bulk of the team which won the five in-a-row, and it’s probably fair to say that they’ve been boosted by Ryan and Conall Jones’ decision to quit the county panel late last year. The Harps also have talented young players coming through the ranks like Bryan McKenna and Eoin Magee, so they haven’t gone away y’know.

3 Kinawley

Kinawley came undone in a fairly disappointing defeat to Derrygonnelly in last year’s senior championship semi-final, but their progress on the whole has been highly impressive in the last couple of years. Tomas Corrigan’s decision to commit to club football only is a huge boost to their chances, and they won the pre-season ‘club players competition’ with victory in the decider over heavy hitters Derrygonnelly. Their manager Ollie Fay knows his stuff, and they won four of their five league games last year. They’ll not be too far away if they play to their potential.

4 Enniskillen Gaels

Enniskillen Gaels claimed last year’s Intermediate Championship title in some style, and we’ve fast-tracked them to the upper half of this list. They’re trying to bring back the glory days to the club after around 15 years in the doldrums, and they’re going about things the right way as they’ve had serious, serious success at underage level in the last few years. As well as the underage conveyor belt, they’ve also welcomed back some older lads this year like Darren Keenan, Niall Love and Conor Carney. They’ll be disappointed if they don’t spring an upset or two.

5 Roslea

Roslea are one of the flagship teams in Fermanagh football, but they haven’t being going as well as they’d like in the last few seasons. Last year was particularly difficult as they don’t have the greatest squad depth and they were hit badly by injuries and unavailability.

They’re also a bit overly reliant on Sean Quigley to get the ball over the bar. On the plus side, they have some promising young players coming through like Micheál Flanagan and Eamon Lynam, and their manager Peter McGinnity is a true legend.

6 Tempo

Perhaps we’ve listed Tempo slightly higher than those in the know would expect – they were, after all, dumped out of the first round of last year’s championship by Teemore – but they’re an improving team with plenty of young, talented footballers in their ranks.

They’ve a good crop of senior and u-20 county players in their ranks, and they’re also bringing through a promising batch of u-17s. Having talented young players doesn’t always correspond with success, but the pieces are in place for a decent season under their manager Stephen Jackson.

7 Belnaleck

Belnaleck looked like a team that had the potential to upset the established order in Fermanagh, but their progress seemed to stall in 2020 (they lost five of their six league matches, drawing the other one, and were well beaten by Ederney in the first round of the championship). They have a number of players on the intercounty panel, including the likes of Darragh McGurn, on the county panel at present, but the Cullen brothers Lee and Che are usually away and that doesn’t exactly help matters.

8 Teemore

Teemore made a good bit of progress last year as they won all six of their Division Two matches and reached the semi-finals of the championship for the first time in quite some time. They were well beaten at the final whistle against Ederney, but they were actually very competitive for the majority of the encounter.

Fermanagh legend Barry Owens is part of their management team but is still playing and was in devastating form at full-forward in their recent victory over Brookeborough, scoring two goals. They’re bringing in some talented young players and they’ll be hoping to at least fare as well as in 2020.

STILL GOING STRONG…Barry Owens is player manager of Teemore