The Fermanagh Juniors enjoyed success on Saturday as they secured the Orchard Cup title on goals difference, after defeating Armagh and losing narrowly to Glendowan U16s.

Sam Gamble’s side had a 4-1 win over Armagh and that proved decisive as they claimed the title despite a 3-2 loss to Glendowan U16s in their second outing. And Gamble is pleased with the progress of his squad although he stresses that there is still much more work to be done.

“Overall I was delighted to get two quality games in and score six goals,” he said. “We were dangerous every time we went forward and we have worked hard on improving our finishing and becoming more dangerous in the final third. We still have plenty of work to do both in attack and defence, but we certainly left on Saturday with a lot more positives than negatives.” He added: “We have had less than month together as an 18 and we have made some serious strides. There is so much hard work ahead of us and the boys are now going three times a week, with a session in the gym at CrossFit.” And the focus will now switch to the Gary Bownes Cup game against Donegal.

“It is a cup that has eluded us in previous years and we are determined to keep improving and we want the boys to get into the good habit of winning games and hopefully we will continue that into July and the tournament itself.” Fermanagh opened the tournament on Saturday against the host county and the Ernemen immediately got to work with Owens and Love wreaking havoc on the flanks.

Fermanagh eventually made their pressure count as Mahon won the ball and played it to Irvine.

Irvine darted forward and slid the ball towards Niall Owens, who drove at the Armagh defence before pulling the ball back for Irvine to fire home from the edge of the box.

Fermanagh continued to create chances and Cassidy was next to go close, but his shot just whistled past the post.

At the break, the Ernemen took stock and set about grabbing that second goal, but it was Armagh who grabbed the initiative as they snatched an equaliser after good work down the left.

This goal seemed to spur on the Lakeland County and within minutes they were back in front.

Luke Flanagan was played through and his left footed snap shot found the bottom corner.

It was all one way traffic after Flanagan’s fine strike and Fermanagh grabbed a third through Jake Browne, who rocketed an effort into the top corner from 25 yards.

A comprehensive victory was secured after Jones whipped in a fantastic delivery from a corner and Irvine powered home a header to cap off a fantastic performance by the Fermanagh lads.

In their second game of the day, Fermanagh took an early lead as Flanagan chased down the goalkeeper and his poor pass found Jamie Robinson, who fired home.

Glendowan responded well and equalised after a fine flick at the front post found its way past the unlucky Johnston in goal.

Fermanagh kept plugging away and created a number of chances but couldn’t find the net.

Eventually they found a breakthrough, as Owens drove through the centre of the park before firing a stunning effort past the ‘keeper from 35 yards out.

The Erne County went in ahead at the interval and they were forced into a number of substitutions as a result of fatigue and cramp and this upset their rhythm and the Belfast side capitalised as they equalised from a clever through ball and their third came courtesy of a scramble in the box, which was fired home to secure a 3-2 win.

In the end the 4-1 defeat of Armagh proved to be just about enough to lift the U15 title and captain Jake Irvine collected the David Humphries Memorial Trophy from David’s Father Noel.