Fermanagh manager Ollie Fay wants his side to go out and prove that they are no one hit wonder when they take on Derry in Healy Park this Friday night.

Fermanagh produced a strong display as they deservedly overcame Donegal last week but Fay stresses that has to be a platform to build from.

“We know that Friday night is going to be a serious challenge but we want to back up last Friday night’s result, we don’t want to go out and not do ourselves justice and people think then that the Donegal win was just a flash in the pan. We want to back it up and push on,” he commented.

That win leaves Fermanagh just one win away from an Ulster final and with chances like this not coming around too often, Fay is eager that they grasp the opportunity.

“You don’t get these opportunities too often, it is one hour of football to get to an Ulster final and it would be some achievement to do that. Look, Derry are in the same situation and will be saying the exact same thing but we will look to give it everything we can and then we can have no regrets. We will go in Friday night and we will work as hard as we can and hopefully we get that bit of luck that you need as well and get over the line,” he stated.

Derry booked their place in the semi final with victory over Armagh, coming from ten points down to win by eight and scoring five goals in the process. And Fay believes that they will pose a big threat to his side.

“They probably have a bit more quality up front than Donegal who would have got a lot of their goals from breaking out of defence but Derry have a couple of key forwards and they will have to be watched. They create chances and if we allow them one v one situations we could be in trouble.

“They are a quality side. They are reigning Ulster champions and that team I think got to the Minor All Ireland a couple of years ago so we know we will have to get a big performance,” added Fay.

He states though that the focus for his side will be on getting their own game right on the night.

“I have said to the boys though that we are going to go out and focus solely on ourselves, play the game we can play and try and take control of it. If we can do that, and we are well capable of doing that, we will be in a good place.”

He does though have a couple of injury concerns to key players ahead of Friday night’s semi-final with Ultan Kelm and Lorcan McStravick both forced off with injury in the Donegal game. Fay believes that McStravick is a big doubt for the Derry game while Kelm is also touch and go at this stage.

“We are managing them at the moment but it is highly unlikely that Lorcan will feature this weekend because he went off with his hamstring while Ultan has a long term thing that he is managing and we will have to make a call on him towards the end of the week. Hopefully he will be able to play but it is not looking good at the moment,” he explained.

That Fermanagh were able to put those loses behind them and push on shows the strength of the squad available to Fay and he believes that was the key to the victory. “There would have been a few players very disappointed that they didn’t start but we had to explain to them that they would get an opportunity to come on and drive the game on and in fairness they took that opportunity when they got the chance. We lost quality players like Lorcan and Ultan and Darragh McGurn came off late on but it didn’t faze us because we knew the boys that were coming on were well fit to the job. We have a good panel of players and when they are called upon they can finish the game out for us.”

Last Friday night’s win over Donegal was Fermanagh’s first at this level in ten years and Fay acknowledges that was something they were very aware of in the lead up to the game.

“We said all week ahead of the Donegal game that we didn’t want to be the U20 team who for the 11th year in a row are beaten in the first round. We knew that we were good enough, we have players with a serious quality in the group and we just said that we were going to go out and do ourselves justice.

“We just wanted to perform the best that we could and we knew if we did that then the result would take care of itself. Afterwards we were just delighted because we knew that performance was in us and we got that monkey off our back.

“You could even see it in training on Monday night that the lads were more relaxed in themselves and even from Friday night you can see that the team is gelling better with that victory.

There is great belief in that team, there is boys there who have won Ulster medals and All Ireland medals so they have confidence in their ability and hopefully after this win they can push on even further,” he said.