After three defeats in a row, Fermanagh returned to winning ways on Sunday with a deserving five point victory over Clare at Brewster Park.

The victory lifted Fermanagh off the bottom of the Division Two table but with two games to play it is all still to play for in terms of the relegation battle with up to six teams still involved in that scrap.

Fermanagh make the trip to Navan this Sunday knowing that a win will lift them out of the bottom two and edge them closer to safety and McGrath stresses that it is a case of taking it one game a time and not looking any further ahead.

“What it will take to stay up, I don’t know, you just have to focus on your immediate match and go at that with both barrels firing,” said the Fermanagh manager.

“I said after the Kildare game that I felt our three remaining games were tough matches but winnable matches. We got the first win against Clare and now we have Meath in Navan this week who are on five points after a good draw in Cork on Sunday.”

Meath are currently a point ahead of Fermanagh in the table but McGrath feels that if his side can build on Sunday’s display against Clare then they are more than capable of returning with the win against the Royals.

“Like ourselves, Meath know they need points on the board to secure safety so going to Navan is going to be tough and you have to show certain qualities and characteristics when you are away from home.

“But if we play to our potential as we did for large chunks of the game on Sunday then I’m confident that we can get the desired result against Meath. It will take a big effort but this is what this league is about, it is a competitive league, there are very capable teams in it and these are the matches and challenges that we wanted. We are under no illusions that there is still work to be done and there is still points to be gained in order to secure safety and that is our mentality going forward,” he added.

McGrath was delighted with the response he got from his players against Clare after the three successive losses.

“I think we all realised that it was one of those matches that just had to be won coming on the back of three defeats. The team responded very positively and I knew that the mood was good and the intent of the players was strong going into the game, and it had to be.

“There were a lot of good things about the performance but the most important thing was getting the win and putting the points on the board,” stated the Fermanagh manager.

The key period of the game arrived after the interval as Fermanagh surged four points clear only to be hauled back as Clare hit 1-01 to level up proceedings.

On the back of the previous defeats this may have proved hard for Fermanagh to recover from but they replied to this with a string of scores to put six between the sides and ultimately win the game.

“We had created a four point lead and should have been further ahead and then in about 90 seconds they hit a goal and point and it put us back to square one. The players responded though in a very committed and energetic way after that.

“We went six ahead and that was a very pleasing thing as it showed the character of the players. They knew because of our league position our backs were against the wall and we had to win the game and they came out fighting.”

Fermanagh made some alterations to their game plan against Clare and they were a lot less open defensively than they had been in recent games and McGrath praised the work rate of his players all over the pitch in not allowing Clare time and space on the ball.

“We did tweak things a wee bit,” said McGrath.

“Certainly the goals against Kildare were disappointing. We were far too exposed through the middle and we were letting teams run at us far too easily. Indeed in the first half against Clare we were allowing them far too much freedom from their kick outs where they were getting short kick outs and were moving down the field with a lot of pace.

“We stopped that in the second half, we pressed very high and the people in the forward line worked very hard to make it more difficult for them and that helped things. Throughout the team on Sunday there was a more palpable realisation that we had to get tackles in and work harder to deny the opposition time and space in order to give ourselves a chance at the back of preventing scores. I think that work ethic came through as the game went on.”