Fermanagh manager Pete McGrath has confirmed that a number of experienced players have opted to call time on their county careers and that he is currently looking to add as many as eleven new faces to his squad to make up the short fall following player retirements and unavailability.

Tommy McElroy, Mark Murphy, Paul Ward and Eamon Maguire have joined Barry Owens in bringing an end to their inter-county careers, Stephen McElrone is ruled out due to injury while Brian Cox (work commitments) and Ronan Ormsby (exams) have indicated that they will be unavailable for the forthcoming season “Tommy McElroy has retired, Mark Murphy is heading back at some stage to Australia, Paul Ward made it known early on that he wouldn’t be committing and Eamon Maguire has intimated that his county career is over and as you know Barry (Owens) has also retired,” said McGrath.

“I spoke to Eamon a few weeks ago and he took a number of things into account and felt he couldn’t commit and that now was maybe the time to pull the curtain down although having watched him on Sunday against Roslea I thought we was excellent and hopefully he will re-consider.

“Tommy McElroy was one of our more consistent performers last season but he lives in Dublin and he has injury problems. I respect that at the end of the day a player has to decide, given the condition of the injuries, whether he can continue to commit playing at a very intense level and if it is something that is maybe going to impact later in his life then you’ve got to make the decision that is going to be sensible for your own well-being. Those were the factors that Tommy had to consider and think seriously about,” added the Fermanagh manager.

And with those absences leaving a huge hole in his panel, McGrath has set about bringing in additions.

“These are people who will be missed and will have to be replaced and we’ll be looking to bring as many as ten or 11 new players into the squad to make up the shortfall that we have suffered. At the end of it all, you try to unearth what is out there and you try to get this squad finalised as quickly as possible and get them all in working and push them on.” McGrath has held two trial games against Derrygonnelly Harps and Lisnaskea Emmetts in recent weeks to cast his eye over the talent available and he expects to name a squad that is as close as possible to the squad that he will take into the league by the end of next week.

“We are hopeful that by the end of next week that we will be in a position to finalise the squad. We have the bones of the squad in place and it is a question of adding a significant number of players to what is already there in order to give us a working panel for whenever we start pitch sessions in November. The people who are in the squad are already doing their strength and conditioning programme a couple of days a week and It’s quite possible that the squad we come up with will be approaching a final squad. Needless to say, people can drop out and other people can come to our attention that we want in but, by and large, if we are able to sit down next week and pick a squad of 33 or 34 players and we’re happy with that, and we’re quite happy that there isn’t a great deal more out there, then that’s the squad we will run with.” And McGrath expects another tough season to lie ahead with Division Three having an even more competitive look to it.

“Certainly the season ahead will be challenging. Division Three will be competitive and like I said last year when I was appointed, we have to be competitive in the league. We finished third last year and the challenges is there to finish as high up the table as we can. Promotion isn’t beyond us but we are under no illusions that every game will be a really hard fought battle. That is the type of game and environment that we have to train to be able to survive in and that’s what we’re working towards,” he said.