Fermanagh manager Kieran Donnelly says that they will travel to Carrick-on-Shannon on Saturday to play Leitrim in a positive frame of mind despite letting a six point lead slip in the draw against Wexford in their opening Tailteann Cup group game.

It means the Ernemen have little room for error now over their last two games and Donnelly knows that it will need a disciplined display on Saturday against a Leitrim side who will be keen to bounce back from their loss to Antrim last week.

“Carrick-on-Shannon has never been an easy place to go and with them being at home they will want a reaction.

“The draw last week wasn’t ideal but that’s the place we are in now and we will got there with a real focus and a positive frame of mind as well because on another day we would have won the Wexford game by eight or nine points.

“We still have to be really disciplined going into Saturday because it is going to be tough. Leitrim’s game against Antrim was really tight for large periods and then Antrim got the goal so we are going to be very disciplined in our approach to it,” he said.

Reflecting on the draw with Wexford, Donnelly commented: “The best way to describe Sunday was frustrating in that we felt we were playing some great football in that first period, creating loads of chances and some of our scores were excellent but we weren’t just ruthless enough when we were on top.

“We should have gone in at half time easily nine or ten up and we weren’t.

“With six or seven in it you are giving a team a chance to get back into it and we felt we were never putting them out of reach when we should have and then with a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes we gave them an opportunity to get back into the game which should never have been the case.”

And he knows that they will have to be much more clinical with their chances this week.

“There are no easy games, when you are on top you have to maximise your chances and that’s just as simple as that and we didn’t against Wexford. It’s important not to replicate that again,” he added.

He is also aware that they are going to have to be strong at the back against a lively Leitrim attack.

“They have pace and good forwards, and as much as they conceded they still racked up 2-12 against Antrim.

“Paul Kearney got on the Sigerson All Star team this year and he came off the bench and scored four points and with the likes of Keith Beirne and McNulty, who is a rising star for them, they have quality up front and that is something we have to be very wary of.

“The key is to nullify those players and hopefully we can counteract them in other areas.”

And he expects a positive response from Fermanagh, much like the one he got after the one point loss to Offaly in the league.

“It is a bit like the Offaly game when we came out of there and we felt we should have won it or at least had a draw and it was disappointing but the boys responded really well and that’s something we have to do again.

“ I don’t think the players can be too down on it because they played a lot of good football, it is just a matter of tweaking a few things and responding and bringing that into Saturday.”

However, he could be without key defender Jonny Cassidy who limped off towards the end of last week’s game.

“Jonny is a massive player for us and it doesn’t look good for him but we will have to monitor it and see how he is come Thursday.

“It also doesn’t look like Darragh (McGurn) and Joe (McDade) will make it this week.”

He does though feel that Sean Quigley may have a bigger role to play on Saturday after a good cameo role against Wexford.

“I thought Sean did very well when he came on and led to our last three scores so he will be pushing hard for this weekend.

“We need Sean on top of his game and we are better team when he is. We should have more options going into this weekend,” he said.