Fermanagh Manager Kieran Donnelly talks to Gareth Cauldwell ahead of Saturday night’s Ulster Championship encounter against reigning All Ireland champions Tyrone.

GC: How have preparations gone since the end of the league?

KD: It has been a really quick turnaround, that has been the biggest thing, and in a way, that has done no harm, in that it just means that you have to turn your focus straight on to championship training which as a player you always look forward to as there is that bit of an extra edge and excitement to it.

The players have trained really well but we are carrying a few niggles, and that is the only reason why you would like an extra week or two, to clear those up.

It was an intensive league with game after game, so a few men were carrying niggles throughout the league, but aside from that the boys are really looking forward to Saturday and taking on the All Ireland champions.

GC: Obviously, it is your first year in the job with a new set of players. What did you take from the league campaign?

KD: The one thing that I took from it is that we have a squad with a good attitude and they want to work hard.

I felt, too, that they showed a lot of resilience coming off a bad start against Antrim to go on a run of two wins and two draws – it showed a bit of character from a young squad, so I took that as a positive.

It has also been our highest-scoring campaign in a while and we showed that we can play good football when we are cohesive.

It was the concession of goals though which was our Achilles heel.

GC: How do you approach this game? It is a big step up from Division Three football to playing the All Ireland champions.

KD: It is a massive step up, and the only way that you can approach it is to focus on yourself initially and making sure that you are in the best possible shape and that you set up well tactically.

Tyrone’s strengths are obvious, with the pace and power that they have and the runners from deep.

It is maybe trying to find those key areas of weakness that they may have and try and get at them in those areas.

That has been our key focus over the last two or three weeks.

GC: From a Fermanagh perspective, is the key to try and keep it tight, stay in the game as long as possible and try and frustrate Tyrone?

KD: That would be the case. Tyrone will be looking to get a good start and take the sting out of us early, so we will have to be compact and work extremely hard to keep it close and competitive and then try and kick on.

Our boys feel that we can compete; it is our home patch and, again, we have prepared really well for it.

We don’t want to play to Tyrone’s strengths, and it is up to us to try and negate that.

GC: As you mentioned, goals were an issue in the league, Fermanagh had no clean sheets. What did you feel was the reason for that?

KD: Funnily, the thing about that is that none of them were down to not being compact, they were all about us switching off.

We weren’t really cut open at all, it was more wee individual errors and just switching off.

We know that Tyrone will be ruthless if they have the chance so we have to be really compact and really solid. They have loads of runners coming from different areas and different angles so we have to remain switched on from start to finish.

Concentration levels will have to be at the highest level.

GC: Obviously, you also have to cause Tyrone problems at the other end of the pitch. Sean Quigley, Ciaran Corrigan, Darragh McGurn and others have all chipped in during the league. Do you feel you have the players to hurt Tyrone?

KD: We have players who can cause defenders problems. Ciaran and Sean have been excellent for us over the past number of years, not just this year, and Darragh as a young lad has taken some exceptional scores during the league. He had three great scores against Limerick and I thought he was brilliant against Laois.

Look, we are going to need everybody stepping up and we have players who are capable of stepping up and sharing the workload in terms of scorers, and we’ll need that on Saturday.

GC: From your own perspective, are you looking forward to your first championship game as Fermanagh manager?

KD: Definitely. It’s a unique one with the first championship game being against the All Ireland champions at our home venue, so it is one to look forward to for all of us.

There is nobody expecting us to win, so it is one where we can go in and enjoy and try and perform.

We are the underdogs and I think the players will relish that too and hopefully we can bring the best version of ourselves on Saturday night.