It’s a case of so far so good for Fermanagh and manager Pete McGrath as they sit top of a very competitive looking Division Three going into the mini break.

The management team could not have asked for much more from the opening to the league than two wins out of two which would have been the first goal of the season.

It has to be said that tougher tests lie ahead for Fermanagh with Tipperary next up at Brewster Park, there is a visit to the Athletic Grounds to face promotion favourites Armagh and a visit to Ennis to play an improving Clare and while performances have been good, there will need to be an improvement if these sides are to be beaten.

However, there are many positives that the management can take from the season to date.

Defensively, Fermanagh have been much more solid in the opening weeks of this season than they were in the entire 2014 and this will have pleased McGrath who stated before the season began that this was an area that needed improvement. This more defensive system was evident throughout the McKenna Cup and has continued into the league with Fermanagh having only conceded 19 points in their opening two games (0-07 v Louth and 0-12 v Sligo).

And the management will have been greatly encouraged by the two clean-sheets that they have kept in those two games and the fact that they have coughed up very little in the way of goal scoring chances in either game.

There had been a worry during the McKenna Cup that the change to a more defensive system would limit Fermanagh at the other end of the pitch and that was certainly the case with the four games in the competition seeing Fermanagh averaging just under ten points a game.

McGrath insisted though that it was about getting the balance right between attack and defence and when the players became comfortable with the system the scores would come.

And it would appear that they have got the balance right during the opening two league games.

The key for Fermanagh was to get others to chip in with scores and not become over reliant on Sean Quigley and they have managed to achieve that.

Quigley has accounted for 0-14 of Fermanagh’s 0-30 during the games against Louth and Sligo, and his importance to the side is obvious. His free-taking has been excellent and he occupies defenders from the first minute to the last.

With teams focusing on restricting the Roslea man’s impact though it needs others to step up to the plate and the likes of Ryan Jones, Barry Mulrone, Ruairi Corrigan, Paul McCusker and Declan McCusker have done just that.

I do think that Fermanagh are possibly missing a bit of pace and trickery in their full forward line but the return of Tomas Corrigan, who is getting back to match fitness and is a forward who is capable of contributing on the scoreboard, would address that and would provide a different type of threat for defenders to deal with.

The game plan that Fermanagh have been working to requires high fitness levels as they look to get players back when the opposition have the ball and then get forward in numbers when Fermanagh have the ball and look to get men breaking at pace off the shoulder. To this end, the work that Fermanagh have done in pre-season has paid off. And it has to be said that the work rate in the middle third has been excellent and midfield pairing Eoin Donnelly and Richie O’Callaghan have given Fermanagh a good platform to build from.

The break now gives Fermanagh the chance to put further work in ahead of the league resuming and the manager and his backroom team will not be letting them get carried away with things. There are areas that they will know they need to improve in and that is what they will be working on over the next couple of weeks. They have put themselves in a good position, nothing more. The league is only in the early stages and the key now is to build on this and improve further over the remainder of the campaign.