Fermanagh Manager James Daly felt his side didn’t play to their potential on Saturday when they went down by six points to Antrim in the Ulster Junior Championship semi-final.

But he is still hopeful that his side can progress to the final when they take on Derry this Sunday in Omagh, with the winner to take on Antrim.

Daly thought his side failed to do enough when they had the advantage of the breeze in the first half.

“I’m disappointed; we didn’t play to our potential,” said Daly. “We didn’t do enough with the wind in the first half and we struggled against the wind.

“The effort was there for 60 minutes but we were a wee bit wayward at times in what we were doing, and the manner we gave up the two goals was disappointing but we’ll address all that this week in training, and hopefully we’ll be better the next day.”

And Daly felt that the game started to get away from Fermanagh as Antrim rattled off scores with the breeze at their backs in the second half.

“When you have that strong wind and go in two points down at half time; they have good players and they did what they needed to do, they picked off long-range points.

“But, again, when we got the ball to our forwards they were very dangerous, but we were a wee bit scrappy in our tackling and moving the ball through our hands.”

The important thing for Daly though is that his young squad learn the lessons from the game.

“There is a lot of inexperience in the team and your thought process is that we will learn from all this.

‘Learn’

“That’s the big thing, that we learn from what we did wrong at the weekend and come up against Derry on Sunday and put that all right.”

Saturday saw a return between the posts for Roisin Gleeson who answered Daly’s call as he had no recognised keeper heading into the championship.

“We have had no goalkeeper since the end of the league and we were going to have to nominate an outfield player to go into goal. We went back to Roisin and she came out of county retirement to help us and we are very grateful. She only came in last week and I thought she did really well for us,” he said.

With Derry awaiting this Sunday, Daly is hoping that the Antrim game will stand to the players and he has warned his players not to read anything into the comfortable win they had over the Oak Leaf side in the league.

“You would be hoping that the nerves that were there on Saturday won’t be there this week and that will all settle down.

“Also, I don’t want the girls thinking that because they beat Derry by 20 odd points the last day, that it is going to be as easy this time – it is not.

“Derry will have something to prove, but at the same time we have an Ulster final to get to and we are looking forward to it.”

The game will be played as the curtain raiser to the men’s Ulster quarter-final between Tyrone and Derry, and Daly says that his players should relish the opportunity to play in front of a packed house in Healy Park.

“To be able to play in front of the big crowd is a great experience for the girls. This is why you give up your time – to play in big venues like this, and they should enjoy it,” he concluded.