Joint-manager Brendan Rasdale says the four-week break Derrygonnelly had since their Fermanagh SFC final victory over Roslea left them fresh for yesterday's Ulster club SFC preliminary round against Cargin.

Early goals from Conall Jones and Gavin McGovern paved the way for the Harps' first-ever away victory in the provincial championship at Corrigan Park.

“That’s another step for these boys. We knew Cargin were a good side, maybe the three games on the bounce caught up with them in the end. They picked up those couple of injuries," Rasdale said in the Irish News.

“We’d had a three-week run up, which wasn’t something Cargin had in fairness, so we felt we had our set-ups pretty good, that we could put them under pressure in a couple of key areas.

“We did very well in the middle third on break ball - that’s nothing tactical, every single game you go out looking to do well on secondary possession. That gave us a platform.”

As a teacher at St Michael’s College in Enniskillen, Rasdale is very familiar with Trillick who the five-in-a-row Fermanagh champions will face next on November 3.

“I’ve coached virtually every one of them,” he explained.

“If I could annex a wee area for Fermanagh, it definitely would be Trillick. They’re two clubs that know each other very well – we play each other on the third week in July every year in a challenge game.

“We played this year, I think they beat us, and that was without Mattie and Richie [Donnelly], but it was still a good contest. Trillick know us, we know them; it’s probably quite unusual for the Ulster club for two clubs to know each other so well.”

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