In the 24 hours after Sunday’s defeat, I kept thinking of Red from The Shawshank Redemption. Remember that bit where he admonishes Andy for daring to cling to a little hope.
“Hope? Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane,” Red said, brow furrowed leaning across the table.
You can imagine him in St Tiernach’s Park in Clones with that same look as Ryan McHugh smashed the ball to our net for Donegal’s second goal. 
In Shawshank Red left the table in frustration. On Sunday he would have headed for The Creighton.
Hope was given a fair hammering by Donegal. No doubt about that. 
At the pre-Ulster final Club Eirne event on Friday night at Brewster Park the hope was palpable. Fermanagh people swelled with pride. This was the year. We ignored the 5/1 odds that the bookies had pinned to us. Buoyed by our victory over Monaghan we saw it as possible. Especially as the game drew closer. This is what hope does.
It is a wretched feeling when it is crushed. It is worse for us too, us Fermanagh folk. 
That shadow of never having won a provincial title is cast long as we try to pick through the embers of another heart-breaking loss. 
It makes it harder to see the reality of things. And instead we can lurch towards desperation and pull on that cloak of inferiority. It is safer. We cast hope aside. But we can’t do that.
What matters now is that we retain our perspective. Promotion, two wins in the championship and one win away from the super eights. Those are the perspectives we need to hone in on.
Now, we don’t go all romantic on it either. With perspective, by its nature, comes a dose of reality. 
And the reality that we must take from all three of our championship games is that we struggle in attack. 
On these pages a few weeks ago, I stated it was madness to think that Fermanagh were not working on attack. It would still be madness to think that. It takes time, but the reality is that we must improve this area if we are to continue to get better. It has been our Achilles heel for too long. Years in fact. 
Yet I believe we have the players. But it will take time and a willingness to change.
Our attack, for a long time now, is based almost entirely around running the ball. 
As a result, opposition teams do not respect our ability to use the full forward line and that means they can compress their defensive structure and suffocate our runners. It is an irony perhaps, but you need a threat inside to make the running game work because that threat stretches the defence.
Patrick McBrearty did brilliantly for Donegal’s first goal; pace, directness and a fabulous fist-pass. 
For the second goal, as Ryan McHugh broke free initially, watch the two Donegal inside forwards sprint out from the full forward line taking their markers with them and opening up the space for McHugh. Had those inside forwards not been there the goal would not have come.
We also have to acknowledge that McBrearty and McHugh produced two brilliant pieces of individual play. Brilliant players do that.
On top of this Donegal really went to work on our kick out. 
We beat Monaghan to the break ball around the middle and Donegal was not going to let that happen and when they started to pick up more breaks than us, it gave them more possessions and that spelled trouble.
Two individual pieces of brilliance, a threat inside at all times and break ball. On such small things games can hinge.
Donegal were just better on the day. They got men behind the ball, and don’t let any guff from the Sunday Game lads convince you of any different. 
They just are better at going forward and better at going forward in different ways. 
They will go a long way, although McBrearty’s injury is a massive blow. 
And when it comes to ourselves there there is no reason why this has to be the end of our journey in 2018.
The next few weeks are pivotal. 
When Fermanagh were beaten by Armagh in the Ulster final in 2008 we exited tamely to Kildare in the qualifiers. 
What followed in the coming years was back to back relegations. This happened despite the fact that Malachy O’Rourke, who I consider to be one of the top three managers in the game over the past decade, was in charge. A collective dark cloud enveloped us all and we couldn’t shake it.
Losing an Ulster final broke us. 
We must all play a part in making sure it doesn’t again.
In The Shawshank Redemption Andy told Red of a place called Zihuatanejo. A paradise he dreamed of. When Red got out he kept a promise to Andy to visit a hayfield in Buxton. There he found a letter. Andy wrote in the letter, ‘hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things’
We will find our Zihuatanejo someday. 
We just have to keep chipping away and improving. We just have to maintain our hope.