Fermanagh manager Pete McGrath feels that Sunday’s McKenna Cup semi-final defeat to Tyrone was ‘a severe reality check’ for his side as they get ready for the league opener against Derry in Owenbeg on January 31.
McGrath’s side had came through the group stages of the competition with three wins out of three but Tyrone provided a big step up with Mickey Harte’s side running out convincing winners at the end finish.
Fermanagh had started the game brightly as they raced into an early three point advantage but by the break the sides were level.
The Red Hands wheeled out big guns such as Mattie Donnelly, Sean Cavanagh and Ronan McNamee for the second half and when Fermanagh were then reduced to 14 men following the dismissal of Eoin Donnelly who was the Ernemen’s best player on the day, they were left struggling as Tyrone pressed for the victory.
McGrath though believes that if his side can take the lessons on board from the game then the defeat will prove beneficial moving forward.
“This extra game we got could be a very severe reality check for us,” he commented. 
“We now have a fortnight to get our heads around what happened, reset and make sure we are ready for the first round of the National League in two weeks time which is infinitely more important than the McKenna Cup.
"What we experienced here today, if we take it on board and learn from it, then it will be an invaluable experience."
The Fermanagh boss had watched his side produce a strong performance against Donegal last Wednesday but was disappointed that they failed to reproduce that on Sunday.
"We played poorly, we had a lot of men who were not up to the same standard they were up to on Wednesday night against Donegal. Needless to say when Eoin Donnelly got sent off any chance we had of winning the match went because Tyrone’s movement, their understanding, their strength came into play and we were floundering in most areas of the field. We started the game well and we could have had more scores. We had great impetus in the first 15 minutes but we didn’t really capitalise on it and it was a draw match at half time which was probably accurate enough for what happened in the first half. 
"Tyrone then brought on a number of experienced men and they lifted their performance and then we had Eoin sent off and we were floundering for most of the second half,” he said.
The Fermanagh manager also felt that Tyrone were getting frees a lot easier than his side, a notion backed up by the fact that Tyrone were awarded 17 frees in the first half compared to four for Fermanagh. However, he stressed that did not have a bearing on the outcome.
“They seemed to be getting them (frees) handier than Fermanagh and that was probably a recurring trend throughout the game. I can remember a number of incidents in the first half when I felt we definitely had men fouled and the referee ignored it. And then for seemingly very little at other times he was giving frees to Tyrone and that can have a bearing on games when every game is tight and it certainly impacted on the first half. But in saying that, we were disappointing today, we played well for the first 15 or 20 minutes but Tyrone showed a lot more awareness," he said.
"They smothered us and we had great difficulty in getting any worthwhile ball through to Sean Quigley and Tomas Corrigan and then coming down the field we were finding it very difficult to break the tackle, get into scoring positions and take shot from maybe 35 or 40 metres and all that accumulated as the second half went on and Tyrone won the game comfortably at the end.”
The league campaign now moves into sharper focus now with the McKenna Cup finished and McGrath says that the key thing will be to get all his players ready and available for the opening game against Derry.
“I think what showed here today was that for us to compete against the Tyrone and the Derrys of this world is that we are going to need practically every player available to us. Physically we were beaten and I think you need the Ryan Jones, the Richie O’Callghans the Eoin Donnellys all on the field at the same time and all functioning. Whenever we don’t have a couple of them, given our pool of players, we tend to feel the consequences of that. I think going forward we are going to need all our players available for every match if we are going to cut any ice in Division Two,” he stated.