Fermanagh hurling captain, Ryan Bogue, knows that if any luck is going to come his side’s way this year, then Saturday is the time for it to arrive.

There have been some heart-breaking moments for the hurlers this year as they have lost several games by a single point.

And these moments have led to relegation from Division 3A, while relegation from the Nickey Rackard Cup will happen if they do not defeat Roscommon this weekend.

Fermanagh and Roscommon drew when the sides met in the league earlier this year.

Give it everything

And Bogue and the Fermanagh squad are going to go all out to go one better this time round and secure their place in the Nickey Rackard for 2024.

“We are just going to go out and go at them and throw everything at them and see where it gets us.

“The whole panel is hungry. They don’t want to go back down [to the Lory Meagher].

“We had a chat last night (Tuesday) before training and we are just going to do everything we can this week to get ourselves right and go at it as hard as we can on Saturday.

“We are lucky we have got another chance. We wanted to put it to bed last Saturday, and we didn’t. So at least we have another chance this week to put it right.”

Bogue paid tribute to the effort that the squad has put in the whole year, with no rewards to show. And believes it is high time that effort was paid back: “The character in the team is unbelievable. We have been down in games and come back and we can’t fault the boys.

“We deserve a bit of luck this Saturday and if there is any sort of time that you do deserve to get it would be now. We are bound to deserve something soon.”

Relying on a result this weekend could have been avoided if Fermanagh had beat Armagh.

For 40 minutes it looked as if that was going to be the case as the Erne hurlers had a firm grip on proceedings, leading 2-14 to 2-07.

But they were outscored and outplayed by Armagh over the remaining half hour as Fermanagh again lost out by the bare minimum.

Frustration

“It is pure frustration. We know we are good enough and are competing but we can’t close out the game and get over the line.

“There’s 100 different things that we are doing wrong, and we can look back and blame this and that but at the end of the day it is down to our own simple mistakes that’s not getting us over the line.

“In fairness to Armagh they did squeeze us tighter in the second half as well. Even our puck outs, they attacked our puck outs more in the second half.”

As well as this, the supply into Fermanagh’s full forward line, which was making hay in the Saturday afternoon sunshine in the first half, the supply dried up in the second.

“It’s probably something we should have been doing, getting the ball in quicker.

“For us as a team last night (Tuesday) we spoke about it, and it is easy to say it in hindsight when you are in the middle of it. Everyone is trying to do the right thing and then sometimes what you are doing is not the right thing

“It’s hard to know but definitely we should have been getting ball into the forwards because in the first half they were flying.”

Do or die

They are lessons to be learned for Fermanagh and Bogue and Co. will be determined to put things right for one last push.

“It’s do or die now on Saturday we are fighting for our lives now at this stage,” said the Naomh Eanna clubman.