Fermanagh forward Ciaran Corrigan was honest in his assessment of his side’s defeat to Clare last Sunday which destined them to relegation from Division Two.

He believes they should have won the game and that old habits came back to haunt Fermanagh in Ennis.

“I felt we should have won the game,” said the Maguiresbridge clubman. “We created a load of chances and similar to earlier in the year, we missed too much and that’s been our downfall.

“I think we had four or five goal chances and at the opposite end of the field they got a really good goal chance and then they were more clinical than us and it cost us in the end.”

The Erne side travelled to Clare depleted from a Covid outbreak within the squad which left many of them unable to train for the last number of weeks and Corrigan feels there should be “huge credit” given to those players as well as the debutants on the day, Sean McNally, Luke Flanagan, Josh Largo-Elis and Daire O’Cathain.

“We were massively disappointed that we didn’t get the game postponed and the GAA didn’t show a lot of fairness towards some of the boys who had Covid going into the game.

“All the boys who had the virus need huge credit and put themselves out there and put in massive shifts. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough but I still think on the day given all the circumstances we could have won the game. But huge credit to those who played with zero training in two weeks and a serious virus and then the debutants who played and done really well.”

Fermanagh’s last league game is a dead rubber at home to Laois on Saturday but Corrigan is hungry to finish with a win that would be a boost going into the Ulster Championship.

“I personally will be looking to win the game. You always want to get back to winning performances and our last performance in Brewster was a tanking match from Armagh, so we want to get a better performance. So whatever 20 boys play on Saturday, we will be looking to put in a performance.

“I think we will picking our strongest team and getting game time. A lot of other counties have had friendlies and we haven’t had any and we haven’t really trained.

“It will be a good opportunity to get minutes and we will be looking to get a win and build a performance for Down which will be a massive test,” added Corrigan.