An understrength Fermanagh side suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of Roscommon on Sunday at Brewster Park, but joint manager Seamus McCusker states that his players will have to put that loss to bed quickly as they travel to Clones this Sunday to play a Monaghan side needing a point to guarantee their league safety.

Mathmatically, the bottom two sides in the division, Louth and Longford, can still move above Fermanagh but they face the top two teams in the division in the final round of games and they both need to win and see Fermanagh beaten.

“We’ll park that result and move on as we have a big game on Sunday in Clones against Monaghan,” said McCusker. “I think we have done enough to stay in the division but to be absolutely sure, and not to have to worry about other results, we have to get at least a draw so in that respect it is a bit like a championship match as there will be a bit of pressure on us. Monaghan would be a fairly good side, and they actually beat Roscommon, but we’ll be going there looking for the win,” he added.

Fermanagh went into the clash with Roscommon severely understrength with Sean Corrigan, Declan McGarry, Matthew Teague and Francie McBrien among those who were missing on the day.

And right from the off the Rossies took control of the game as they raced into a 2-09 to 0-02 half time advantage.

Indeed, it took some superb saves from Fermanagh goalkeeper Mark Curry deny the visitors an even greater lead at the break, Curry making a number of fine stops including a great save from Naos Connaghton.

The Roscommon scores in the first half arrived from Adrian Murphy, Garry Fallon, Connaghton and John Moran while Fermanagh finally got off the mark as half time approached with Fergus Bannon registering his first ever point at inter-county level, and Ryan Bogue clipping over a point.

Bogue then added the opening two points of the second half but Roscommon resumed full control of matters thereafter as they piled on the scores.

Bannon was to tag on a further two points from his new advanced position while JP McGarry landed four excellent points for the Ernemen but they had no real answer to the Rossies dominance with the away side slotting home another two goals in the second half to run out convincing victors.

“Roscommon are a good side and were favourites to win the division. Sunday was also the first time they had a full hand to pick from and they were really up for the game,” said McCusker. “We were missing quite a few players and we can’t afford that but we got a look at some boys and there was some good performances. I thought Mark Curry was good in goal while JP and Brendan McGarry both did well.”