Derrygonnelly manager Sean Flanagan feels that Sunday night’s victory over Roslea will stand them in good stead as they move forward to a semi-final meeting with Kinawley next weekend.
In a real battle, the Harps finally got on top of Roslea in the closing quarter after a physical tussle to push on for the win.
“Definitely, we are going to be a lot better for a game like that,” he said. “It was a very intense battle and I thought the referee did well because there was plenty of tricky moments both ways that he was very solid on.
“It was an intriguing game for the neutrals and I thought that Roslea’s level of physical commitment and defensive organisation was top class.
“But we had prepared for the game to pan out pretty much the way that it did and I think as the game wore on we really used the ball a lot better and worked a couple of scores. I think from maybe about 40 minutes in the game we exerted a good level of control on possession and eventually it paid off for us,” he added.
He is though expecting a different type of test from Kinawley and states that the Harps will have to be better than they were in the league game between the sides in which the Brian Borus took the spoils.
“Kinawley have great momentum at the minute and they will definitely pose us a different set of challenges and we will have to match them better than we did three weeks ago in Derrygonnelly,” he commented.
Roslea boss Peter McGinnity was proud of the efforts of his side on the night.
“It was a really honest effort from the players and I suppose it was just difficult for them to carry it out for 65 minutes but I was very proud of the effort that they put in,” said McGinnity, who admits that his side found it tough to get out of their defence in the closing stages of the tie.
“They forced errors and capitalised on those. We were finding it difficult to make the extra run but as I say I just couldn’t fault the players at all,” he said.