O'Rourke praises his side for not panicking

MAYBE WE should have known better than to trust a volatile Down side on a trip to what has become a forbidding championship venue for visitors.

Their prospects had been built on upcoming talent from a good under-21 side and a proven attack, which was marginally favoured to overcome the twin challenges of their own unsettled back six as well as the attentions of an accomplished Fermanagh defence.

That’s not how it turned out despite Down having moved two points ahead in the third quarter during a lively second half in a tight but foul-strewn opening match in the GAA Ulster football championship in Enniskillen.

At 0-8 to 0-10 in arrears, Fermanagh manager Malachy O’Rourke said that he could still see his side winning.

“To be honest, I could because in championship football you always expect that. That is always part of it. There are times when you are sitting watching the game that momentum is gone to one team. The thing that is important is that the management and the players realise that is part of the game and that each team will have a purple patch and you keep your discipline and work your way through a period like that. I was always sure that the boys would rally back and that is how it turned out.

“That is the time that the experience factor comes through. It is as much about not doing anything stupid, not trying too hard, trying to do simple things, making sure you win the next ball, win the free, slow things down, use the ball well and getting the next score. It is a combination of all those things. We have been though that situation before.”

His Down counterpart, Ross Carr, was very subdued in the cold and the rain that pelted down intermittently during the afternoon.

“It is hard to know where that moment of madness came. There was a 15-minute period in the second half. I felt, at two points up, that we were comfortable. Had we been able to push on and get another point or two we might have went on to win the game.

“In the same period of time, not only did we not score, but we turned the ball over. Fermanagh got a wee bit of momentum up and there only looked like being one winner towards the end of the game. We didn’t look like we were going to score a goal and we definitely weren’t going to score enough points to win it.”

For a team that had come into the match carrying low expectations despite a good summer last year and a reputation for finding scoring an unduly daunting challenge, Fermanagh had proved a point.

“We got a bit of stick last year with not scoring enough and a bit of stick this year for being relegated,” said centre forward Ciarán McElroy, “but at the same time we were playing good teams in Division Two.

“A few things went against us in some of the games. There was a spell there when they got a couple of points ahead, but I suppose that bit of experience from last year stood to us.”