Canavan expects a sharper Fermanagh
Editorial Department • Published 16 Feb 2012 13:00
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Peter Canavan issues last minute instruction to Eamon Maguire before he entered the fray on Sunday against Clare at Brewster Park.<<
On Monday night Fermanagh learnt that they would have to travel back to London for the second time in a fortnight to play their postponed league fixture against the Exiles in Ruislip.
With the squad set to travel on Saturday evening, it did not leave a lot of time for arrangements to be made, but manager Peter Canavan feels that there are plus points in the game being played this weekend.
"It's late notice but in a way I'm pleased to get a few games under our belts," said Canavan. "If we had no game, we would only have played once in the space of four or five weeks so it is good to build up the momentum and hopefully the game last week will have put us in good stead and we'll be that wee bit sharper than we were last week."
And Canavan states that they knew that this weekend was an option for the game to played so it has not caught them completely unaware.
"We had two free weekends and we had it in the back of the head that they could do this. Look, we have a week to prepare for it and that's ample time so we will not be using it as an excuse in any way for not performing over there."
Like Fermanagh, London got their campaign off to a belated start on Sunday when they took on Limerick.
And the Exiles, who had Lorcan Mulvey sent off after only four minutes, put up a good display before eventually losing out 1-13 to 1-07 at the Gaelic Grounds.
"Limerick would be one of the favourites to come out of Division Four, but despite having a man sent off in the early stages, London were still able to more than compete with them," commented Canavan.
The Fermanagh manager feels that London are now a much different proposition than they have been in previous years.
"I think they are a completely different team than they have been in recent years. They very fact that they participated in the FBD League and had so many players willing to participate; I think that at one stage Paul Coggins had over 60 players to select from, who were keen to get involved. He has got a stronger panel than he's ever had before. They are very competitive and have a lot of quality and we will not be taking them lightly."
Fermanagh were very slow out of the blocks last week against Clare and only really got going in the final 25 minutes but having got that game under their belts, Canavan hopes they will get into the stride much quicker on Sunday in Ruislip.
"They were much quicker to get up to the speed of the game and they were playing at a tempo that was faster than ours so it definitely took us a while to get going and get up to the pace of the game. We would like to think though that the game will have benefitted us and we'll be much quicker in starting against London," he added.
On the first half performance against Clare, the manager stated: "We were very lethargic and our performances in the McKenna Cup were of a much higher standard. In fairness to the players they fought very hard when things weren't going for them. There was still good commitment shown and they worked very hard for one another despite the fact that things didn't come off the way they liked."
He did though feel that there were signs that they could turn the game around in the manner they eventually did.
"It didn't look good but we were still doing a lot of things right. We were still winning possession around the middle and we still created chances and that was a good sign. Even at half time we still had more shots at goal, created more chances than Clare did." "In the second half the quality of ball in was much better, the movement up front was much better and as a result of that we had more scores. There is no doubt though that in terms of performance we'll be looking an improvement on Sunday."
This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 16 Feb 12
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