Promotion within touching distance for McGourty’s Fermanagh

By Shaun Casey

FERMANAGH are just 60 minutes away from a league final appearance and securing promotion to Division Three and Erne County boss CJ McGourty says his side are exactly where they want to be.

They take on Carlow in the Division Four league semi-final in Lannleire on Sunday and if they are victorious there, they are on the up.

“I think we’re in a good enough positio. It could still be better but we’re very happy with the first four months in terms of getting to know all the girls and them getting to know us, and we’re working towards the goals we want to achieve together,” said McGourty.

“This is probably step two. Step one was to qualify for the league semi-finals and we done that. So now step two is to try and get promoted which is difficult in any league and any division. Hopefully next Sunday will be an opportunity to try and get out of Division Four.”

The former Antrim footballer and Tyrone hurler is expecting a tough test against the Leinster outfit.

When the sides met earlier in the league campaign, they drew 2-10 apiece ensuring that Carlow are the only side to have taken points off Fermanagh.

“Carlow are a very, very good team. I know a lot of people would always talk up the opposition, but I have a lot of respect for Carlow, they’re probably the team that gave us the most headaches,” added McGourty, hoping to secure promotion in his first season in charge.

“It was that day of the red warning which had an impact on the game, but they have a lot of talented forwards and when you have a lot of talented forwards then you can win a lot of games.

“From the day that I took the job, I’ve said that between the top five or six teams in Division Four, there’s very little between them and that showed throughout the league.

“Yes, we won a lot of matches, but the games were very tight and we’re expecting nothing different come Sunday.

“Having already played them, it probably does help the management team. Only one of the management team would have saw them last year live, so it gave us an opportunity to get a look at them.

“They’ve had the same management team for the last couple of years so they would probably have a little more knowledge on the Fermanagh players than we would have on the Carlow players.

“Playing them that first day in the league, we’ll have picked up a lot from it. We’ll try and do our homework and get our match ups right and then it’s about going and producing a performance and worrying about ourselves.”

Fermanagh have a few long-term injuries but nothing that will upset the squad next Sunday.

“The squad’s good and we have no real injuries of note,” added McGourty.

“We still have one or two girls that are coming back from long terms injuries and next week is too early for them, but the rest of the squad that has played throughout the league are all fit and healthy.”