There is little time to sit and feel sorry for yourself after a heavy defeat when your survival hangs by the most slender of threads.

The Fermanagh footballers will know all about it following their 24-point drubbing at the hands of Louth last Saturday.

It means they will have to hope the footballing Gods side with them when they face Cavan and Louth take on Kildare.

A win for Fermanagh and Kildare means survival. 

But after conceding 6-17 how quickly can Fermanagh pick themselves off the floor?

It's a job that Erne manager, Kieran Donnelly, and his backroom team will be working at all this week.

Looking back at the Louth game, he admitted that anything that could go wrong did for his side, while Louth were ruthless when they got the chance.

"It was extremely tough [to take] in that I suppose we went in [to the game] playing really well and we felt our performance levels were high and there is no doubt we knew that Aardee was going to be a tough place to go.

"They only got beat there last year by Dublin and Derry so, they have a good record.

"But the performance wasn’t acceptable from our end.

"We know that we hold our hands up. We made too many individual mistakes and we coughed up possession too easily and that was really the crux of the game. They maximised every chance they had and we gave away possession too easily.

"They hurt us. They scored 2-02 of us giving the ball away in the first half and that probably left the game out of reach."

Donnelly knows it will not be pleasant viewing looking back at the game but there was a brief glimmer of positivity among the nightmare.

After a poor start which saw them trail 1-03 to no score after 10 minutes, Fermanagh hit four points in a row: "We played some great football and to score four on the bounce I thought we had got to grips with the game and we could kick on.

"It was nearly the way the game went; we got a couple of bad calls went against us and they got a goal just right after us expending so much energy to get back into the game.

"And I think every time we were getting back on your feet and we got a sucker punch and that's mentally tough on players never mind energy draining and we struggled.

"The boys will probably never come through a game like that again where everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong.

"And we felt even when things were going against us there were a couple of really tough calls on the boys.

"So it was a tough afternoon all around, but we are very determined as a group that we bounce back because we have put in so much work to date."

The bounce back needs to be quick and against Cavan on Saturday evening.

Last year, when they needed a win in Kingspan Breffni Park to secure promotion they did it.

It's a different end game but a winning result is what they need and hope for the best in the other game.

"That’s all we can do. We had a great day down there last year with some great memories of families out on the pitch and getting promotion.

"We are going down there on the reverse scenario this year but we'll go down knowing if we bring our level of ability to the pitch and park last week, we can bring a performance level that is good enough to win.

"Cavan are probably in a similar position to ourselves. They conceded 2-21 against Armagh so they are going to be hurting as well so it's going to be two teams really coming off the bounce of two heavy defeats and it's who reacts the best."

There was a welcome return to action for Johnny Cassidy in the dying minutes of the Louth game. Another brief positive from Ardee.

The teak tough defender has been sidelined with injury this season and Donnelly said he could well feature against Cavan: "Johnny is one of those key players we do need back, there's no doubt about it.

"It's been a long road for him he hasn’t much training under his belt but we are very keen to get him out onto the pitch again hopefully over the next week or two we'll see a fully fit Johnny Cassidy returning to the Fermanagh team."

Fermanagh take on Cavan in Kingspan Breffni Park on Saturday, March 23 at 7pm.