Fermanagh Ladies will begin their quest for the Ulster Junior Championship title this Saturday when they take on Derry in Carrickmore in the semi-final of the competition.

After a year of struggle in 2016, a rejuvenated and youthful Fermanagh side have started to rediscover their feet in 2017 and manager Emmett Curry has his sights firmly set on progressing through to an Ulster final.

The side failed to win a game last year, suffering relegation to Division Four and early championship exits but they challenged for promotion in the league this year, winning five of their games and reaching the semi-finals and it is progress that has delighted Curry.

“We won five out of our seven games in the league and the two teams that we lost to contested the final so you can’t have asked for much more than that.,” he said. “The girls have greatly progressed throughout the league and people forget that they didn’t win a match last year so the results during the league campaign will have given everybody a good lift in confidence.”

And the squad has been further boosted by the return of a couple of key players since the end of the league.

“Aisling Woods and Maria Connolly have both returned to the squad since the end of the league and that has been a massive boost for us as they are both good players. It is great to have them on board,” said Curry.

A win on Saturday would see Fermanagh book their place in the Ulster final and while Curry admits that Ulster glory is a goal for the squad, he is not about to look any further ahead than the challenge of the Oak Leaf side.

“I hope to get through to the final and if we can go on and win it then I will be over-moon. We are targeting winning the championship but I’m a firm believer in not looking any further ahead than the next game and I won’t be thinking of anybody else other than Derry this Saturday,” he stated.

Fermanagh and Derry have already met this season when the pair clashed in the opening game of the league at Brewster Park back at the end of January.

On that occasion Fermanagh ran out comfortable winners with Joanne Doonan bagging a hat-trick on the way to a 4-07 to 1-04 win for the Erne side.

However, Curry says that game will have no bearing on Saturday and he expects a much closer encounter this time around.

“They will have players back, the Slaughtneil girls weren’t there at Brewster Park when we met in the league and they reckoned that they had quite a few missing that day so we won’t be reading anything into that game at all.

“We will be expecting a tough and tight game. I don’t think there will be that much in it and we have to be wary of them,” he added.

A defeat would not be the end of things for Fermanagh as the loser will then take on Antrim and the winner of that game will then go through to the final but Curry is not thinking of going through the backdoor.

“We will be looking to win on Saturday and get through to the final, we won’t be worrying about anything else,” he commented.

Fermanagh will be looking for a big performance on Saturday. In goal, Roisin Gleeson’s fine league campaign saw her, along with full forward Sharon Murphy named in the Divisional side of the Year. In front of Gleeson, Courtney Murphy and Edel Campbell are important players while a strong half back line should consist of Shauna Hamilton and Aishling Maguire.

Captain Aine McGovern and Marita McDonald will be expected to hold their own in the middle of the park while Fermanagh will then look to the likes of Murphy, Doonan and Lisa Maguire to get the them the scores to take them to the win.

So, where does Curry feel that the game will be won?

“I reckon our half back line and our full forward line our the keys to the game. If our half back line plays well and then we can get ball into the likes of Sharon Murphy and Joanne Doonan then we will have a great chance of winning the game,” he said.

The Fermanagh manager will be hoping that they have a busy summer of football with the Ulster Championship followed by the All Ireland Junior Championship but Curry again stresses that it is one thing at a time.

“Obviously, we would love to do well in the All Ireland but we’ll focus on Ulster and once that’s over we will re-group, get the heads back down to work and then think about the All Ireland.”