Fermanagh manager Rory Gallagher wants his side to back up their impressive wins over Kildare and Donegal with another strong performance against Clare this Sunday at Brewster Park.

Fermanagh will go into the game full of confidence on the back of an unbeaten start to their league campaign and Gallagher wants to see them continue with the form they have shown over the last few games.

“They say every day is a big day in the league.

“In some ways it was very easy for us against Kildare and Donegal because there was huge motivation from the way we performed last year against them, albeit the league and championship are two very different things, but I would have expected the boys to be at a good level.

“For us to be the team we want to be though we need to have very consistent levels of performance each week and that starts with how we prepare this week, in first of all recovering from the game against Donegal and then training really well. If we do that it will give us a better chance of being where we want to be against Clare,” he said.

Gallagher admits that the Banner are a county that he has not encountered too many times but he is expecting a big test on Sunday.

“They will be physical but they have skilful forwards as well while Gary Brennan at midfield is a top quality player.

“They have been in this division for a number of years and although I would not be that familiar with them, I’ll get to know them this week. A lot of it though will just be focusing on ourselves and trying to improve on our first half display against Donegal.” he stated.

The win over Donegal saw Fermanagh remain joint top of Division Two after four games but there is still very little between top and bottom in the table and Gallagher reiterates that the primary goal is still to get to safety.

“At this point of time everybody is still in a relegation battle, that’s the reality of it. You would expect that this weekend will put some teams clear of it and we would very much like to be one of them but we know that Clare will be another test,” he added.

Fermanagh went into last week’s game without captain Eoin Donnelly and although Gallagher is hopeful the Coa man will be back, he stresses that they won’t take any chances on him.

“We would very much hope that Eoin will be back in the reckoning but we’ll see how he trains this week. He got a wee niggle against Tipperary and aggravated against Kildare so we will try to look at the bigger picture. We are happy with the squad and we are not interested in playing players that are not fully fit,” he said.

In Letterkenny last Sunday Fermanagh produced a big second half display to overcome Donegal, coming from five points down to win by three.

Gallagher was delighted with the second half but also felt that while the first half wasn’t perfect, they did plenty right in it too.

“The second half was vastly superior to the first but we still did a lot of things right in the first half. We did well on our own kick outs, Tom was brave in getting a few away short, and we did reasonably well on theirs but we probably didn’t defend the way we wanted to. We had plenty of bodies back but the wee bit of intensity and the wee bit of bravery and work rate in going and chasing down the ball was probably lacking. We were also maybe short an extra runner or two when going at them in the first half but thankfully at half time the boys knew that and it didn’t take much to get right.

“When Donegal had the ball the key for us was to put more pressure on them and the other thing was that we were too cautious in the first half, we weren’t going at players and we seen in the second half we went for the jugular down the middle and it paid off. Che going to midfield was also a big help as well, especially without Eoin,” he added.

Fermanagh dominated things in the second half and Gallagher felt that they could have had a couple of goal openings but opted to fist over the bar instead.

“I would need to watch it back to see if some of them were goal chances but we probably haven’t got the rewards for all our good play. But that’s something we look to improve on week on week and to go out and kick nine points in the second half in a tight game is pleasing.

“We have to push on now though continue to improve,” commented Gallagher.