Allianz National Football League Division Two: Fermanagh 1-17 Laois 0-10
SEAN Quigley’s absence from the starting 15 was all the talk as punters filed into Brewster Park on Sunday afternoon but, as they made their way back out the gates, there was only one name on the lips of the Fermanagh faithful.
This was the Tomas Corrigan show. Jinking inside, outside, lightning bursts left his markers swallowing soil as he ended up with 1-11 – 1-4 from play - before receiving a rapturous round of applause from the Enniskillen crowd when withdrawn six minutes from time.
Burly Roslea forward Quigley was served with a one-match ban on Friday after being cited for an incident at half-time in last week’s defeat to Armagh. But, with Corrigan in such fine form, he wasn’t missed.
After that devastating last-gasp loss at the Athletic Grounds, Pete McGrath’s men had to take maximum points against Laois to give themselves a fighting chance of steering clear of the Division Two relegation dogfight.
And they bounced back in emphatic fashion.
“We spoke during the week about this game being absolutely critical in terms of the mathematics of the table. If we’d lost this today we were definitely facing serious relegation issues,” said the Erne boss.
After a nervy start that saw them drop three balls into the hands of Laois goalkeeper Graham Brody within the first 10 minutes, Fermanagh never looked back.
Corrigan’s first score came after eight minutes, cutting in from the left to fire over, and five minutes later he produced a similar shimmy before lashing the ball to the net after some superb support play from Ryan Jones.
That put the Ernemen 1-2 to 0-1 up, with McGrath describing it as “a big score”.
He added: “It put a bit of daylight between us and them. When we used the early ball in and supported the people inside, we were definitely finding a lot of gaps, a lot of space which maybe you wouldn’t get against an Ulster team.”
Corrigan, who plays his football in Dublin after transferring from Kinawley to Oliver Plunkett’s last year, finished the half with 1-8 as Fermanagh went in at the break 1-10 to 0-4 ahead.
The O’Moore men dropped Brendan Quigley back into midfield after half-time, but it made little difference.
Early second half scores from Aidan Breen, Tomas Corrigan, Mulrone and Ryan Jones had the hosts 13 ahead by the 40 minute mark, 1-14 to 0-4, and a raft of subs introduced by both sides disrupted the flow of the game.
Laois boss Mick Lillis was sent to the stands 10 minutes from the end after a spot of verbals with referee Marty Duffy. As they did against Tyrone last week, his side produced a fightback of sorts late on, scoring the last three points of the game.
By that stage though, their goose was well and truly cooked.
Lillis was understandably downbeat, and said he felt Quigley’s absence had actually played into Fermanagh’s hands.
“I’ll be honest, when I heard Sean Quigley wasn’t playing, I felt it would be a disadvantage to us,” said Lillis.
“Not having Sean Quigley there, they became a lot more mobile. Their route to goal is a lot different when Sean’s in there so the whole thing changed a bit – and I think it worked well for them.
“It was a shocking performance. We’re so disappointed – we really thought coming up that we were in with a shout. But we just did not play, and they probably didn’t let us play.”
McGrath, on the other hand, was delighted with what he had seen – and was already turning his attention to Saturday night’s crunch derby clash with Cavan.
He confirmed that ace marksman Corrigan – withdrawn late on with a tight hamstring - would be fit for the game against the Breffnimen, when Fermanagh look to extend their winning record at ‘Fortress Brewster’ to 12 games.
“Cavan have had two very convincing wins recently and it’s one of those games you get promoted for. We want to be playing in this League against good teams, getting tough games. We’re getting that and we look forward to Cavan next week.
“The performance today was excellent - the quality of football, the combination play, the team-work, the work-rate and some of the scores were so well worked, so there was a lot to be happy about.”
On the Brewster Park factor, he added: “There is a certain mentality among the players when they play here, and that does give another dimension to the desire to do well. But I’m sure Cavan won’t care too much about that next week.”
Fermanagh: C Snow; M Jones, C Cullen, N Cassidy; P Rehill, J McMahon, A Breen (0-1); E Donnelly, R O’Callaghan; B Mulrone (0-2), R Corrigan, D McCusker (0-1); P McCusker (0-1), R Jones (0-1), T Corrigan (1-11, 0-7 frees). Subs: C Jones for R Jones (53), M O’Brien for P Rehill (55), P Cadden for P McCusker (56), P McGovern for M Jones (61), D Kelly for C Cullen (64), J Duffy for T Corrigan (64)
Black card: B Mulrone (71)
Laois: G Brody; R Kehoe, M Timmons, D Seale; D Strong (0-1), C Begley, D O’Connor; K Lillis, J O’Loughlin; D Kingston (0-5, 0-3 frees), N Donoher, P Cahillane; C Meredith, B Quigley, P Kingston (0-2). Subs: R O’Connor for N Donoher (34), S Murphy for D Seale (ht), A Farrell (0-1) for C Begley (53), G Dillon for K Lillis (56), E Costello (0-1) for P Cahillane (58).
Yellow card: J O’Loughlin (42)
Ref: M Duffy (Sligo).
