Fermanagh boss Donnelly: Tyrone and Derry tests will only benefit us

That will be followed four days later with the visit of Ulster champions Derry in the competition, so it will be two big tests for Fermanagh ahead of their league opener at home to Longford at the end of January.

“At this stage, nearing the start of the New Year, you are glad that you have competitive games and at this stage they are probably perfectly fixed, in that there are then two or three weeks and then you start the National League.

“The games are needed as much as anything. You have been training away but you need to find out where you’re at with certain players, which we will do over the McKenna Cup period.

“We are looking forward to it and they are games that we feel we need,” said Donnelly, who has been happy with how pre-season has gone, to date.

“It has gone well, in that you are judging things on the boys’ attitude, which has been good, and the new boys that have come in have settled in well, albeit a lot of them have been in before, and aren’t new to the scene, so that helps that transition be a bit smoother.

“It has been a good three or four weeks and the boys have trained hard.”

He is though expecting two tough games in the McKenna Cup, with Donnelly feeling that Tyrone will be eager to make a good start to the season after a poor 2022 while Derry will be aiming to build on their success of last season.

“Tyrone are in a situation where they will really want to kick on this year. You have heard that they have been training hard and you would imagine that they will come fairly strong and want to get off on a good footing.

“Plus, they have loads of talent, so no matter who they play they will always have ability, and I would be expecting Tyrone to take it seriously and look to do well in the McKenna Cup and bring that into the league.

“Derry are coming from a really good year and they will look to have the continuity of carrying that on.

“They will have that thing where once you have one good year, you want to have a second so they will be keen to push on,” he added.

Donnelly believes though that playing the best teams will only benefit his players in getting ready for that Longford game, while he will also be looking to get some players game time in the competition to assess where they are at.

“I think from our point of view, the one benefit from having these two games is that at least we are going in knowing that we are playing the best.

“We are looking to learn about players and see where we are at.

“The McKenna Cup is a good competition and every team in their own right would want to win it, but you will also look to have that balance of trying to bring in players that you want to look at for the National League.

“We have players like Che Cullen who is just back in after being out of the county scene for the last two or three years, and they will need that exposure to just make sure that they ready for the National League, which is key.”

And he is also aiming to run his eyes over some of the younger players in the squad.

“There are a few of the younger lads, the likes of Fionan O’Brien who has been going well and those are players that we will look to get exposure to and game time.

“We need to find out about them pretty quickly, and see where we are at,” he said.

However, Donnelly does have a number of injury concerns, with Sean Quigley ruled out at present, while Darragh McGurn may not see any game time in the McKenna Cup.

“Darragh has had a problem since he started back and it hasn’t gone away, and he may not make the last McKenna Cup, but we would hope to have him ready for the start of the league and we want him to push on and be a key player for us.

“At the minute, Sean is rehabbing, and we are seeing how he responds to the load and until we get him to that level then we are not sure. We don’t have a time frame yet.

"Tommy McCaffrey has also picked up a knock and had been going well," said Donnelly.