It may only have been the preliminary round of the Ulster Championship and there will be much football to be played and debated throughout the rest of the summer, but the game in Clones did highlight one important factor.

The blanket defence, the funnelling back of defenders and indeed attackers into the defensive half or 45 will not stop good teams and good players from scoring and scoring heavily.

Time and again, players from both sides could be seen running back into the defensive positions as the opposition got their hands on the ball, often not even looking at the play. It’s a dangerous game and the facts speak for themselves: there were 33 scores in St. Tiernach’s Park on Saturday evening and only seven of those came from frees while Monaghan scored 1-18 from play.

Now the Fermanagh set up may be defensive in nature but it is not in execution because class and quality can only be curtailed for a period.

The main reason for this is that by funnelling back into the 45 and only engaging the opposition when they get that far is a dangerous game and when you have the players of the quality that Monaghan possess coming at you, then you are in trouble.

And, that is how it turned out on Sunday. The other crucial and decisive aspect was that at half-time Monaghan modified their approach slightly and pushed up on Fermanagh and engaged them higher up the pitch. They had the physical capability to do this and the tactical nous to carry it out from which they reaped the dividends.

Fermanagh enjoyed bucket loads of possession in the opening 35 minutes and while they had to work hard for their scores, they did come and they were well in the game at this stage.

With the likes of Aidan Breen, Eoin Donnelly and Paul McCusker coming off the shoulder and creating inroads into the Monaghan defence, Fermanagh were able to get the scores or frees to remain well in the game.

Eoin Donnelly and Lee Cullen were on top in midfield and Che Cullen and Mickey Jones were coping well with the McManus/McCarron threat.

Ryan McCluskey was well on top of the game from the centre half back position while bringing Sean Quigley out of the full forward line was the right decision allowing more space for the hugely industrious Tomás Corrigan.

But all that counted for little between the 42nd minute and the 62nd minute as Monaghan rattled off ten points without reply.

You see the problem is, Monaghan have players from all over the field that can kick points from distance, Neil McAdam, Colin Walshe, Owen Duffy, Jack McCarron and of course Conor McManus all weighed in with crackers in poor conditions on Sunday and that was Fermanagh’s undoing.

They say, keep your friends close and you enemies closer, but by inviting all these quality players into your 45 then you are keeping the enemy a little too close and that is how it played out on Sunday.

Add in the extra physical dimension of Monaghan which was able to turnover a tiring Fermanagh with much more ease in the second half, punch bigger holes in the Erne defence and then it was clear that there would only be one winner as the second half unfolded at a rain sodden Clones.

Did Fermanagh lose anything in defeat? Well, not really.

Monaghan under Malachy O’Rourke are a serious outfit and if they can get out of Ulster without replays, suspensions or injuries then anything is quite possible while the return of Darren Hughes later in the summer may be the timely boost they need as they look to break into the top four.

It will be interesting to see when they come against the likes of Donegal or Tyrone or even the next day against Cavan, just where the two blanket defences will start to engage. My bets are it will be well before the 45.

Fermanagh’s ambitions are somewhat different and given the player turnover in the last two years this is understandably so.

The blanket defence did not succeed on Saturday but equally going toe to toe would probably have produced a similar outcome, simply because Monaghan are a better team. There is, however, room for modification, room for pragmatism and a slight rethink.

Indeed, hopefully, come the qualifiers, the teams will not be as good as Monaghan for a while anyway. So if Fermanagh can tweak the blanket a bit, learn from Monaghan and engage a bit higher up the pitch, perhaps play Sean deeper and increase the space for the likes of Tomas Corrigan at full forward to allow a quicker transition from defence to attack, then there is no reason why progress cannot be made in the qualifiers.

The effort, commitment and preparation was, as always, total from Fermanagh and it will serve them well in the qualifiers.