Fermanagh U20 boss Maurice McLaughlin felt his side simply didn’t perform on the night as they made their exit from the Ulster U20 Championship with a 2-13 to 0-07 loss to Down at Pairc Esler last Friday night.

“The lads know themselves and they were very disappointed after. Everybody is honest about it, we just didn’t perform.

“That’s the frustrating thing as a coach or a manager, when you see your team underperform; I feel for the lads because I’ve seen first hand the effort they have put in over the four months and I know they are better than they showed on Friday night,” he said.

It was always going to be a tough task for Fermanagh to come away with the win against the reigning champions and McLaughlin acknowledged that they could not afford to be as wasteful as they were when they had chances to close the gap after a poor start.

“When you are 1-01 to no score down after 90 seconds it makes a mammoth task even greater.

“We had 16 shots at goal and only two on target and that tells a story in itself, that we had opportunities in the game and we didn’t avail of those opportunities, especially in that period before half time when we felt we had a dominance in the game and if we could have tagged on a few scores it would have brought us back into the game,” he added.

He was though impressed with Conor Laverty’s Down outfit, the Mournemen’s movement a problem for Fermanagh throughout while they were also physically stronger than the Ernemen.

“Their movement and pace, not just on the ball but off the ball, was excellent, they are a very good team who are very well coached.

“They are also physically very strong, they were very well conditioned,” he said.

McLaughlin though believes that this side can come again with most of them still underage next year.

“The pleasing aspect of it is that seven or eight of the starting team are underage next year and the squad as a whole there is probably 20 underage next year.”

And McLaughlin says that he will take time before making any decisions on his own future but is enjoying working with this group who he has taken through from U17s.

“It’s too early and too raw for decisions to be made on that type of stuff but I must say that I’m enjoying the journey and enjoying working with that group of players,” he concluded.