Fermanagh manager Pete McGrath felt his side should have taken the points on offer against Derry on Sunday.

Instead, the late drama that saw Fermanagh throw away a three point advantage in the final minutes to lose by a point has resulted in them slipping into Division Three for next season.

Fermanagh controlled the game for the majority of the contest but missed chances and being turned over when in promising attacking positions ultimately proved costly for the home side as their two year stay in Division Two came to an end.

“To a large extent we shot ourselves in the foot today,” said McGrath.

“I think the winning and losing of the game for long periods in the second half was in our hands and we simply didn’t put it to bed. We have no-one to blame but ourselves.

“We took control of the game in the second half but never got far enough away to make the game anywhere safe and we had the opportunities and we had the possession to do it but at times we made bad decisions and Derry always knew they had a chance. Obviously the goal was on their minds and they got through for it and it changed the whole dynamic of it over the last couple of minutes,” he added.

Fermanagh will have felt aggrieved about a couple of decisions by referee Martin McNally but McGrath acknowledged that the blame for relegation lay at their door.

“When you lose a tight game you are going to look at decisions that maybe didn’t go your way and you could point to a number of decisions, particularly in the first half where I thought there was a marvellous tackle made (by Barry Mulrone on Enda Lynn) and the free kick was given and the ball was put over.

“But you can’t blame the referee for what happened over the seven matches. It came down to today, we knew what we had to do and we knew we had to win this game and we fell short.”

The old adage is that the league table never lies and McGrath says that they just have to accept that their campaign was not good enough to keep them in the division.

“You get your seven matches and if you are good enough you will stay up and if your not you won’t and today we proved that we are not good enough for Division Two, that’s the mathematics of it and we have to accept that,” he commented.

Goals at both ends of the pitch have been Fermanagh’s big problem this year, particularly conceding them and on Sunday they shipped another two bringing the total conceded to 12 over the seven league games while they only managed to score one goal. Indeed, Derry’s late goal to level things was the killer blow to Fermanagh’s hopes of staying in the division.

“Derry’s second goal, that was the real catalyst for the outcome,” said McGrath.

“We tried to put things in place to ensure that we don’t leak goals but we leaked two today, we leaked three last week, four against Kildare and one against Clare so that has been our achilles heel,” he stated.

And McGrath felt that those defeats in the middle of the league left his side short in confidence.

“We took a couple of bad beatings in the middle of the campaign which I think did damage to our belief and our confidence and maybe at times there today that damage manifested itself in that we just didn’t have the confidence and the drive to go on and kill the game off,” he added.

With the league over, minds will start to switch to an Ulster Championship meeting with Monaghan in Clones and the Fermanagh manager knows that they will have to lift things quickly after this hard blow.

“That’s always the challenge for any manager, to pick the team up and pick himself up and go forward and that’s what we have to do but today is a big blow, there is no point in trying to dress it up any other way.”