The road to Croke Park commences this Saturday, once again, when Fermanagh ladies take on Offaly in an All-Ireland quarter final. Manager Aidy Little, says on paper they should be confident but it’s all about their performance on the day; “We’ve never played Offaly before because they only moved up from junior two years ago. I’ve done a bit of research on them; they played Antrim twice and beat them once. If we go by all of that we should be confident enough but they (Offaly) will be ready for us and up for it. We need to produce a performance on the day, if we want to win.” Despite Offaly being somewhat of an unknown entity for Little and his team, the Lisnaskea man is not unduly concerned about that; “I have the team that lined out for them the last day and I know who the main scoring threats are, so we know who we have to worry about. Any manager will know in the first five minutes of a game who the good players are.” Since Fermanagh’s last competitive game in the Ulster final, at the end of July, they have played a couple of challenge games against Donegal and Cavan club side Lacken. Little says these games helped them work on some of the weaknesses they displayed in their Ulster final performance against Antrim; “It took us 16 minutes to get a score against Antrim and in that time we missed ten chances. If we don’t take those chances in other games we could lose the game in the first 15 minutes, never mind trying to win it in the last ten, we don’t want to make things harder for ourselves than it needs to be. We need to come out of defence a bit quicker too and just be that bit sharper in there.” He goes on to add; “The two challenge games helped us get ready for Saturday. We have tweaked a few things to make ourselves better. Donegal are the Ulster senior champions and we went down there knowing it would be tough but we wanted to play a better team. We held our own in the first half but they pulled away from us in the second half. Lacken was an easier opposition but we stuck to our game plan and I think we’re definitely better off for having played those games.” As Fermanagh prepare for their next big hurdle, Little believes their wealth of experience will stand them in good stead; “I’m confident in their ability; they are fit and well tuned in to what they have to do. I think the previous years of getting to the All-Ireland final have prepared them well for what is needed. They just need to take one game at a time.”