Fermanagh Ladies manager, James Daly, was content with how his team performed as they opened up their Ulster Junior Championship campaign with a draw against Down last Sunday.

In a low-scoring affair, a late Fermanagh penalty earned a share of the spoils while they also had the chance to win it straight after, but it was spurned.

Looking back at the game Daly reflected: “When it came down it if you only have five scores and you get a draw, you’re walking away from it thinking you are lucky enough to get a draw.

“But I thought we played well enough to win the game and even after we did score the goal, we had a one-on-one chance with the goalkeeper and could have scored.

“I was happy enough to be honest with you.Yes, we only scored five scores, so it probably was a fair result.”

All five of these scores came from the boot of Bláithin Bogue and with Eimear Smyth deciding to step away from the county set-up this year, the Tempo forward is the spearhead of Fermanagh’s attack.

But Daly and his squad are working on increasing the spread of scorers throughout the team.

“Of course, when one person does all the scoring it is a concern because if you come up against a good team, they will think let’s just stop Bláithin. Now that’s easier said than done.

“We do need other girls to step up. We are trying to get confidence in girls to actually take the shot.

“We were back to training last night and we have worked on it, and we have looked at the video and we’re trying to address that.”

Fermanagh were without the influential Róisín O’Reilly (hamstring) while Danielle and Lisa Maguire were only fit for appearances from the bench for the game against Down.

Daly hopes that with these players back to full fitness for the Derry game next weekend, there will be more names on the scoreboard.

“Lisa is coming back from a long-term injury and Danni had hurt her back earlier on in the week. She had made herself available to start but we just thought we’d bring her on from the bench.

“Róisín, we weren’t going to rush because she has a problem with that hamstring, and we felt again the Derry game is probably a more important game and the extra couple of weeks will give us the chance to get better and hopefully if all goes well against Derry, we are in an Ulster Final.”

It will be a two-week gap between the Down and Derry games for Fermanagh and their manager is happy with how things are shaping up.

He knows there are aspects to work on but also there are parts of the game where Fermanagh are strong.

And Daly hopes this will give his side confidence going into the Derry game: “We have to be confident going to play Derry.

“The thing is the rest of our game is really, really solid. We have a very solid structure, we get set up well, the girls know what they are doing. The defence to limit Down to only seven points, we are doing something right.

“We are very, very happy with that end of it.

There could be additions from the Minor squad who were knocked out of their competition last week with Daly hoping to add some new talent to his squad as they hope to reach the Ulster Final.

“We have a very solid team there, we have a good bunch of girls that are working hard now that the minors are out, we are looking at them to possibly bring a few of them to start blooding them up for the future.

“I always thought it wasn’t the most important game of the season because no matter what happened if we beat Derry next weekend, we will be in an Ulster Final.”