IT IS just over two months since Fermanagh made a brief appearance in the Ulster Championship, losing to Down in the quarter-final of the competition at Brewster Park.

That loss, with the year that was in it, ended a disappointing season for the Fermanagh men that also saw them drop to Division Three in the league.

For Declan McCusker, a break was welcome after the defeat, but he is now back up and running, albeit in a different way to past seasons.

Pre-season usually involved the familiar slog in pitches across the county as the panel prepared for the new season.

However, with the current situation due to Covid-19, it is a more lonesome task as group sessions are prohibited, with people training only allowed to do so with one other person outside their household.

McCusker is lucky in that his older brother, Paul, is on the panel and the two of them usually get the miles in the legs together.

And technology plays a part as the squad use a running app to carry out the sessions.

“We use Strava, so you can check the session and see more or less what everybody is doing.

“Leon [Carters] would put up a session and you are more or less told to do it the next day. At the start it was a bit more lenient, and you’d get it done at some stage but now he wants it done on the right days,” he explained.

McCusker, a teacher by trade, doesn’t mind how they are training at the minute, but admits that with the short days, it can be a bit of a challenge to get some of the sessions done.

“I don’t mind it. It’s grand when I’m off and I have been off. There was one day last week and I was working and came home, and by the time I was ready to start it was five o’clock, and it was more or less dark.

“We ended up running in the pitch-black at one stage.”

Lay down a marker

January would normally see the playing of the Dr. McKenna Cup and the chance for players, new and old, to get some game time and lay down a marker for the coming league.

That is not happening in 2021, and because of this McCusker believes that when collective training resumes, it will be more important than ever.

“The McKenna Cup would have been good because you would have been getting a break from the tough training. You would have known there was a game coming up, and you could look forward to it that way and see how the new boys got on.

“Sometimes if you start in the teams in the McKenna Cup and you go well, you get your place for the league and you go well at the start of the league. It can be a building block.

“Boys aren’t going to get that chance. It’s going to make training far more important and the few friendlies [too], if we get them before the league starts.”

It is a different structure in the National League in 2021, with Division Three being split into regions.

Fermanagh will face Cavan, Derry and Longford in their group, and McCusker knows the challenges they face.

“If you look at our league, the way it is split, the four teams that are in our group are the two teams that got relegated from Division Two, and the two teams who finished third and fourth in Division Three last year.

“So you could say the top four teams are in one section. The way it has worked out, it looks like our section is tougher,” he stated.

But he does not mind. He just wants to get back out and play some competitive football, and he hopes the measures in place now and the vaccination roll-out will see that happen sooner rather than later.

“Whenever you get the fixtures out, and dates in place, and the vaccine kicks in, and after this lockdown, then hopefully we can plan for things and work towards them.

“But it will be nice to play a game of football,” McCusker concluded.