Fermanagh 0-4 Tyrone 2-12

A commanding first-half performance from Gerard Donnelly’s Tyrone side saw them storm to a 2-12 to 0-04 win over Fermanagh in Belcoo on Saturday.

A goal in the opening moment of the game was followed by some fine scores from the away side on a sunny early afternoon at MacNean Park.

Tyrone travelled to Fermanagh on the back of a seven-point loss to Donegal in their second Ulster Championship game, but they wasted little time in getting their noses in front at the weekend.

A long ball into the square just after the throw-in dropped and found its way into the net for the game’s first goal. Shea McDermott then added two points with a well-taken 45’ and a free kick from the left-hand side.

Lorcan McMurray added a third point before Fermanagh eventually got off the mark through a Daire Chapman free kick after 12 minutes.

Tyrone hit the next three scores as Sean Corry made his way up from half back and split the posts and McDermott landed arguably the score of the day as he spun just inside the 45’ and sent a shot sailing over.

Liam McGeary’s shot into the clouds made its way between the posts with Fermanagh then registering their second score after a patient move resulted in Dan O’Connor striking a brilliant outside of the right boot shot over from the right-hand side.

Tyrone were reduced to 14 men on the stroke of halftime as midfielder Enda Donaghy was shown a black card for a late challenge but it was the visitors that ended the half stronger as Jamie Concannon pointed and McMurray punished a giveaway from the kick out with a point in injury time.

It was a slower start to the second half, Darren McAnespie converted a free six minutes in and Fermanagh then had a goal chance of their own when Ryan McCann played in Calum McInnes but his shot was well saved by goalkeeper Oisin Watson.

Tyrone responded with their second goal three minutes later with Concannon driving through the middle of the pitch before dropping the ball but having the skill to convert on the ground with a shot into the bottom right corner.

McGeary and Chapman then traded scores and Tomas Cathcart was on target with a mark. Darragh Devlin added a Tyrone point from play for the final score of the game.

Fermanagh will have a break from action this weekend before facing Down in their last Ulster Championship group game.

Fermanagh manager Niall McElroy said there was no denying the quality of Tyrone after the game.

“It was another tough game against very good opposition. Tyrone have lots of very good footballers and they showed that throughout,” he said.

“We went behind very early on and I suppose we talked a lot about keeping the goals out and how important that was going to be but we conceded a goal with Tyrone’s first attack and that put us on the back foot.

"It’s difficult when you go behind like that so early in the game and we slipped just too far behind. We battled away and kept them out as much as we could but with the quality Tyrone have, they’re always gonna have a serious threat going forward.”

Fermanagh will have the coming weekend off before facing Down in their final group match with Down in action this weekend against Donegal.

“Down reached an Ulster Minor League final, they are going to be difficult opponents but I suppose every game is a fresh start and we’ll go in with the mindset that we’ll give a good account of ourselves and stay in the game for longer than we have done so far in the Ulster Championship and see where it takes us,” McElroy added.

Despite losing their opening two games to Tyrone and Monaghan, the Fermanagh boss is still well aware of their quality: “Down are still in a position to qualify for the knockout stages competition so we’ll see how that game goes first for them and they’ll be looking to get a victory against ourselves to get into a knockout game but we’ll try and give a good account of ourselves and, it’s our last group stage match in the Ulster Championship before we enter the All-Ireland Tier 3 competition so we want to go into that with a positive mindset.”

Fermanagh: D Treacy; N Flynn, C Mulligan, A McCaffrey; C Casey, J Tierney, T O’Brien; M Duffy, D Chapman (0-02, 2f); G McCann, R Hannigan, R Bogue; O McGovern, N Beattie, D O’Connor (0-01). Subs: R McCann for Casey (ht), C MacInnes for Beattie (ht), T Cathcart (0-01) for McGovern (48), D Mohan for O’Connor (50).

Tyrone: O Watson; P McGinley, P Goodman, E Conway; S Corry (0-01), D McKeown, A Quinn; E Donaghy, D McAnespie (1-01,1f); S McDermott (0-03, 45’, 1f), J Concannon (1-01), S Óg Teague; L McMurray (0-03), D Devlin (0-01), L McGeary (0-02). Subs: P Colton for Donaghy (47), P McGoldrick for McMurray (45).