Fermanagh Ladies will begin their All Ireland Junior Championship campaign this Saturday when they take on Wicklow at Lannleire GFC in Louth and manager Jonny Garrity believes that he has a squad that can hold their own with the best in the competition.

Fermanagh’s last game was back on March 8 when they lost out to Louth in the league but Garrity explains that, all considered, preparations for the championship have been going well.

“There has obviously been difficulties this year like no other year but we won’t be unique in that, I think every team will have had their own troubles and we are no different.

“When you consider everything, with the restrictions and people opting out of the squad for health and safety reasons and difficulties like that, then you have to be really, really happy with how we have prepared. We are delighted with our squad and we are looking forward to seeing them in action,” he said.

Normally, coming into championship, the league would be some sort of gage for how teams are shaping up but with seven months between the two competitions because of the Covid-19 situation, Garrity says you can’t read anything into league form.

“You can’t take anything from the league and I know that if anybody was looking in at our league season they would be misled hugely because without even mentioning the changes in personnel we were really unlucky in most of the matches that we lost.

“I think we could take a lot of positives from the league campaign, we gave a lot of girls debuts and game time and we are now hopeful that will stand to us come championship but it’s something that you can’t take anything from when you are looking at opposition,” he added.

Fermanagh do though have a stronger squad now available than they did for the league with players returning from injury while Joanne Doonan is back following a stint playing Women’s AFL in Australia.

“When you look at the National League squad, there was a lot of younger players on it and we are probably a bit more experienced with what we have now.

“A few of the younger girls have opted out and in their place we have the likes of Joanne Doonan, Shannon McQuade, Blaithin Bogue back in who didn’t feature in the league.

“We also had Eimear Smyth and Aisling O’Brien out injured for some of the league games so we are very strong now with all those girls fit and raring to go. Then on top of that we have brought in some players who we have seen excel for their club this year so we are bringing in experience, we are bringing in quality but as well as that we are also bringing in form players and all that combined is very exciting,” he states.

And with Doonan, Smyth and Bogue back, Fermanagh have match winners and firepower in their attack.

“You have firepower and natural scorers in those three girls and maybe in the National League we were missing that wee bit of firepower although I do feel that the general level of our performance was still strong.

“We are confident that if we can get that level of performance up there again that we have finishers who can hurt teams,” he added.

The Junior Championship is split into two groups of three with the top two in each progressing to the semi-finals. And Garrity wants to hit the ground running against Wicklow with Carlow next up.

“Getting out of the group is the aim and even before that it is going out and putting in a performance on the first day and see where we stand after that.

“Of course, we will be taking it one step at a time but when we look at our squad we feel that we are a match for any other team in it.

“There is quality in our group but we also know that Carlow and Wicklow are two very good teams and if you are using the National League as any sort of barometer, the three strongest teams are on this side of the draw and whichever two teams go through there will be a good team dropping out so we have to be very vigilant that it is not us,” he said.

Wicklow defeated Carlow 3-15 to 2-05 last week in the group opener and having had the opportunity to watch it, Garrity was impressed with this Saturday’s opponents.

“They have the advantage of having played already but at the same time it is a six day turnaround from Sunday to Saturday so there is pros and cons in that.

“We had the benefit of watching them against Carlow as all the games are streamed and we were very impressed with Wicklow, they have strength, speed and finishers up front.

“We know they are going to be a very dangerous team and are a team we are wary of but at the same time it is a matter of concentrating on ourselves and we know if we do that and put a performance in we will certainly give Wicklow and any other team plenty of trouble.

“We want to produce a performance on the day and see where it takes us.”