Fired up and showing no fear

The parameters of Fermanagh's achievement in reaching a first All-Ireland semi-final are generally well known at this stage: tiny catchment, dissent in the camp leading to a wholesale clearout of established players, the appointment of a manager with no inter-county experience and the gains of last year's modest progress apparently scattered.

This year's National Football League campaign didn't look like it was sowing the seeds of greatness and the county lost its place in Division One. Among the counties who beat them was Cork - a result Fermanagh memorably reversed at Croke Park last month in the qualifiers.

Cork manager Billy Morgan remembers the evening of the league match with a graphic realisation of Fermanagh's evolution over a short period.

"I suppose in retrospect you could say that when we played in the league we won by five points but they kicked 17 wides on the same night. Then when we met in Croke Park everything they hit sailed over the bar. They play with abandon as if they're under no pressure and have no fear."

Armagh's Joe Kernan reflects on the build-up to his side's sensational defeat on Saturday.

"I thought against Cork they were very impressive but at the same time wasn't sure whether that was because Cork weren't as good as I'd expected. One thing stood out and that was their enthusiasm. Before, Fermanagh teams might have just taken it for granted that they were going to be beaten."

That quality also took Morgan by surprise at a stage when he felt that his team had broken the back of the underdogs' challenge.

"They didn't give up. We went three up early in the second half of that game and I thought 'now, that's it, we'll go on and win by six or seven' but their heads never dropped.

"They played Tyrone in the Ulster championship and led before losing by only four. I had watched a video of their match with Meath who at times looked much superior but didn't kill them off."

Defeat enabled the Cork manager to renew an old acquaintance with Fermanagh's manager Charlie Mulgrew, the former Donegal player whom Morgan knew 20 years ago.

"I played with Charlie in New York and in 1984 the GAA organised a sort of homecoming of the overseas units for centenary year so I spent a week with Charlie in Ballina and found him good fun. He was always a kind of carefree character and that's the way the team play.

"They've a lovely style of football, very fast on the wings with good footballers in Stephen Maguire and James Sherry in the middle."

The overwhelming favouritism bestowed on Armagh - who on Saturday topped the betting for the All-Ireland - nagged at Kernan and the timescale of the qualifiers aggravated his unease.

"One of the disadvantages of the back door is that you only get six days to focus on the opposition. That's little time to look at it in any great depth.

"We still believed it was going to be hard even though we were being hung out to dry with the press saying all week that we couldn't lose. But the good start didn't help; I think we might have started to believe that it was going to be easy. I was disappointed with the way we played but Fermanagh kept driving, driving, driving."

Kernan sees the fraught circumstances of Mulgrew's enforced team building as being ultimately an advantage to the team.

"Out of all the problems they had, they brought in new faces and they didn't know or care about the problems and they'd no bad memories of last year. Once they'd lost to Tyrone, they obviously decided to give the back door a lash. Nothing beats winning matches for creating enthusiasm.

"Their strengths are that they've good players down the middle and boys who can run on the wing. They've two or three fellas who can score points and this great enthusiasm for working and supporting each other."

Facing into the unprecedented challenge of an All-Ireland semi-final, Fermanagh will probably find what comes next a more testing phase than anything encountered so far, as they were being serially under-rated in the qualifier rounds.

"They've been under little pressure compared with the like of us who are under pressure to win every day we go out," says Kernan. "The question now is how they'll cope with the glamour of being in the spotlight. But it'll give so many other counties a lift it'll be unbelievable."