Pete McGrath says that Fermanagh have to put the disappointment of Sunday’s defeat to Donegal behind them and focus now on a trip to Wexford in the Qualifiers on June 25.
Like last year, the Fermanagh manager is targeting playing football in August and he has challenged his side to get back to Croke Park this summer.
“We are all bitterly disappointed, but you have to shake that off and you have to be mature and positive enough to say that this is gone and there is a chance here to another route to a lot of football this summer, let’s take that route and I know the players will adopt that attitude.
“As far as I would be concerned, the goal has to be playing football in August. It is management’s plan to regroup very quickly and refocus and to get all our energies channelled towards playing Wexford next weekend, and I would like to think that the players are ambitious and enthusiastic about that as well. At the end of the day we are out of the Ulster Championship and we should be looking to make as much progress in the qualifiers as we can with the goal of getting back to Croke Park this year. 
“I think for any team that is serious about developing and progressing, getting to Croke Park has to be an objective and I would like to think that the players will embrace that.”
Indeed, McGrath believes that defeat to Wexford would be a serious blow to the progress being made by the current squad.
“If you can imagine a situation where Wexford beat us, I think it would be an awful blow to the work that has been done over this last couple of years and the really solid progress that has been made. There are some games that you have to win and then there are other games that you simply cannot afford to lose and in my view the Wexford game is one we simply cannot afford to lose,” he added.
For Fermanagh to come through the Wexford test they will have to take the positives out of the loss to Donegal and work on the things that didn’t go right on the day.
“Like any other game you have to learn from it, you have to take from it the things that were good, the things that worked for you and you have to look at things that maybe weren’t good and things that didn’t happen that you thought would happen. 
“We have to try and distil all of that, go through it and come to some sort of conclusion on how to push the thing forward now for the Qualifiers,” he commented.
McGrath says that his side made a slow start on Sunday but he felt that they were right back in the game by the interval, despite Sean Quigley missing a penalty with the last kick of the half.
“I thought we were slow to get out of the blocks, they were coming at us very strongly and they were winning a lot of breaking ball around the middle, it was about 23 minutes before we won a breaking ball. 
“Shortly after they scored the goal they went five ahead and then we had a very, very good patch over the final 15 minutes of the first half and it was during that time that we played near our capacity and we had Donegal very much in the back of the bus and we were controlling things. The confidence at that stage was very high, the movement and the energy was there. 
“The Donegal keeper had a couple of poor kick-outs and that was adding to the pressure also and then the penalty came and all the hullaballoo about the penalty and the length of time we had to wait to take it didn’t help. The penalty was missed but we didn’t dwell on it at half time, we were in a good place going in, we had got a grip on the game and it was a question of going out and trying to keep that going,” he said.
However, McGrath accepts that the penalty save was a boost for 14 man Donegal who went on to boss the third quarter with their second goal the decisive strike of the game.
“From Donegal’s point of view though the penalty was saved and in their minds that was three points that was saved. They were going in a man down but the way that Donegal play, they get men behind the ball and I don’t  think that losing a man put them under too much stress. 
“When they then got the second goal it gave them a five point lead and that effectively was the one that gave them all the confidence that they needed to control the rest of the game and keep us at a safe distance.
“You have to remember who we were playing, they are a team that played in two All Ireland finals, they had All Stars on the bench. You would say by any standards that Donegal are still in the top five or six teams in the country.”
Donegal’s experience and know how was obvious throughout the second half as they saw the game out although McGrath was disappointed with what he described as “gamesmanship” by the Tir Chonaill players.
“It was gamesmanship and the referee fell for it. Every time a Donegal player went down, even if it was for something like cramp, he stopped the play. I think it should only be stopped if it is a head injury or what looks like a serious leg injury. They were going down for so little and it was to fragment the game and prevent us getting any head of steam. It was very disappointing to see.”
It is on now though to the Qualifiers for Fermanagh and McGrath states that if Fermanagh can play like they did in the 15 minutes leading up to half time on Sunday then it is a game they will win.
“The challenge for all of us is that we have to look at the last 15 minutes of the first half and bring that game to Wexford. If we do, we’ll win the game. 
“Wexford though are on their home ground and they beat Down there last year. They will be difficult and they will be feisty and the challenge for us is can we take our best game to Wexford and get the job done. If we are a top ten team in the country then we should be going to Wexford and dispatching them.”