As the lights went out around Brewster Park on Saturday night, Fermanagh manager Kieran Donnelly must have wondered if it was an ominous sign for the remainder of the campaign.
Few wanted to linger around longer than they had to, but Donnelly stayed behind to try and make sense of what he’d witnessed as his side crashed to a nine-point defeat to Antrim.
On a night when little went right for the hosts, they were left to rue a series of missed goal chances in the first half with Kevin Small’s major for Antrim tipping the game in favour of the Saffrons.
Antrim bossed the closing stages, hitting a further five unanswered points to run out comfortable 1-14 to 0-8 winners.
"We were three down at half time, we’d 11 shots, Antrim had seven,” reflected Donnelly.
“We were working below 30 per cent shot to scoring ratio. We’d three or four goal chances even though we felt we weren’t playing well in stages, we just needed to take those chances and didn't.
“The second half continued in similar vein, Antrim got on top and I thought we responded really well, but the goal was the killer. I think that long kick-out from the ’keeper, I don’t think our boys were expecting it the way the game was evolving.
“He just let it go 60 metres and it took out a lot of our players. It was a disappointing day and not the way we wanted to start the League, but we have to respond to it now.”
Of Fermanagh’s goal chances in the first half, the best opportunity probably fell to their new skipper Declan McCusker.
Having cut in behind the Antrim defence, the Ederney defender sliced his shot to the left and wide of Oisin Kerr’s goal.
James McMahon also had a goal ruled out when he fisted into the net in the first half and Donnelly knows how pivotal the game’s only goal proved to be.
“We’ve a young team and I suppose to get off to a good start was important,” said Donnelly.
“I suppose confidence was the thing and I suppose sometimes confidence drains when we missed those and we tended to force things and get frustrated.
“On a different day you take them and the game evolves differently – and we didn’t, so that was a massive factor.
“Antrim are an experienced team and they’ve experienced players who have been about for a number of years. That seemed to stand to them.
“We’ve been blooding a lot of younger players. We still expected to perform so we can’t really use that as an excuse.”
He added: “We expect a lot more of ourselves and we expect higher standards and we have to demand that of ourselves.
“We can’t accept that last 10 or 15 minutes at any stage so that’s something we have to improve on.”
Fermanagh were regarded as one of the front-runners for promotion after missing out last season following their semi-final defeat to Offaly.
The Ernemen will hope to bounce back against Wicklow this weekend, with the Garden County losing 1-16 to 2-8 at Westmeath on Sunday.
Donnelly knows Aughrim hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for Ulster sides in recent times with Antrim suffering an infamous 25-point defeat there in October 2020.
“It is a really tough one,” said the Fermanagh boss.
“We’ve been down there before. They are a physical team, Aughrim plays tight, so we know all that.
“There are no easy games, so we’ll just have to regroup and go at it.”
