By Damian Campbell
Wasn't it just brilliant to be back in Brewster Park for the big occasion?
Everything was perfect. The sun shone, the grass was green, the huge crowd from both counties awash with anticipation. Fermanagh coming into an Ulster championship clash with realistic prospects of winning the contest
The grounds and its environs looked simply resplendent.
What a flagship possession that Fermanagh GAA can display to all and sundry right in the heart of the county.
Terrific to have the buzz of the Ulster championship percolating through the county in the days leading up to the Monaghan match. There can be no doubt that the championship is the competition which is the engine room of the Association.
And to crown the celebration of the return, to what can be asserted is the spiritual home of the Erne county GAA, our senior team delivered the goods.
It was, and the cliché will serve as well as any other description, the icing on the cake.
Pre match there had been just the exact approach. Everyone was fully conscious that Monaghan were going to be an exceptionally daunting prospect.
For this was a massive match for the Farney panel of players and for their ferociously ambitious management pairing of Seamus McEnaney and Martin McElkennon.
But there were more than enough straws strewn in the wind to give credence to the belief that Fermanagh could win this battle.
The recent league form, despite the blip against Wexford. Our excellent record in our recent head to head contests with this opposition. The very fact of being back on the Brewster Park turf.
It all stacked up. Fermanagh were in this game, big time.
Amazing too how fickle are the hands of sporting fortune. But what goes round, generally comes round.
In the league final down in Parnell Park, Fermanagh shipped a hat trick of all too easily conceded goals and couldn't hit one in reply.
Last Sunday week we were handed two three pointers more or less on a plate. Had Eamon Maguire's fisted effort gone over the bar for the point he sought, the game might well have taken a radically different turn.
The score though did come so quickly and such scores quite often do not have a significant impact, did this time did have an influence. Monaghan couldn't undo the damage completely.
Goal two was definitely the torpedo that sank the Monaghan ship. Again an element of fortune, the initial centre clearly intended to go elsewhere but it floated into the path of Ciaran McElroy. But it is essential to snap up the gifts when they are served up.
This Fermanagh did and in the end it was a totally merited triumph.
Only blemish on the marvellous day was the disappointment of the minor team who stalled in the starting blocks. Here again there had been realistic hopes of advance but not to be and months of intense preparation came to naught.
Months of preparation too from so many people.
There is no shortage of comment on the amount of time, effort, energy etc which players both at senior and minor put into their inter county training programme.
But this vast commitment is matched by a virtual army of volunteer GAA personnel who work behind scenes to ensure that big game occasions proceed without a hitch.
It would be remiss not to acknowledge the ocean of effort put in by so many county officials and Gaels club members plus a supporting battalion of GAA folk from the clubs who all combined to make last Sunday week, the organisational triumph that it most certainly was.
Finally, just to toss in a pebble to ripple the pool.
The Monaghan game saw a classic hardnosed sporting decision made by team management.
Shane McCabe, has been involved with the county team for a matter of weeks. He may have been slogging through the winter on his fitness levels, but it wasn't up in Lissan.
So Fermanagh reach a crisis point some fifteen minutes into the second half and resurgent Monaghan are showing every sign of being capable of turning this match around.
Decision time for the Erne management. This is make or break territory.
They introduce the Belcoo player and while it would be absurd to say that he won the game it would be idiotic to assert that he didn't have considerable influence on exchanges thereafter.
End result of it all?
Fermanagh play Derry in the Ulster semi final. Monaghan head for the qualifiers.
As I've commented before.
There is precious little room for sentimentality in sport.
Supporters can adopt whatever opinion they wish but the real bottom line, as printed in the sports columns of the following day's newspapers was;
Fermanagh 2-8 Monaghan 0-10.
