By Damian Campbell

Before looking ahead to Clones in a few weeks time, a brief look back. Pure theatre in Healy Park on last Saturday week.

Practically all the ingredients thrown into the mix to produce a championship match which Fermanagh fans will remember with glee for decades to come.

A championship match which Derry fans will cringe at in horror for decades to come.

If the script had been written by that doyen of Irish melodrama, Dion Boucciault, he of the 'Colleen Bawn' fame, he couldn't have come up with a production which was so implausible or farfetched as this rivetting seventy minutes plus.

The Ulster championship has once again delivered a tour de force.

A Samson and Goliath scenario, tailor made for all the possible cliches

Fermanagh according to the accepted wisdom, needed a flying start.

Instead they handed their highly fancied opponents a six point lead. Derry were doing what hot favourites are supposed to do in circumstances such as these.

They set out to ruthlessly kill any optimism and belief which the challenger might be foolishly harbouring in their heart of hearts.

Those opening fifteen minutes with Derry on the rampage, Fermanagh struggling to keep some semblance of hope, were little short of disastrous. It would have been the stoutest of Erne hearts who wouldn't have felt a tremor of despair that this wasn't going to be an out and out fiasco.

Memories of previous horrendous semi final experiences against Derry and similar grim memories here at Healy Park against Donegal were simmering under the surface of even the most upbeat of Erne followers.

But then came a pivotal moment, the superb penalty save. It would be a foolish person who would claim that at that precise moment they knew that the game was to be turned on its head.

Fermanagh were still being trounced but in hindsight it was to be a fulcrum on which all else turned.

After that, little short of magic as far as Fermanagh were concerned.

An evening that joins the pantheon of other unforgettable occasions.

So it's to be Armagh.

The county who more than any other has been our championship nemesis over recent decades, beginning I suppose with the final defeat all those years ago.

Indeed there was a time in the 1980's when the Orchard were the bane of our lives for we seemed to be facing them every b----y year and always the same depressing outcome.

The provincial final was a major downer but hard on the heels of that comes the infamous collapse in the Athletic Grounds when we contrived to squander an apparently impregnable lead in a harrowing final few minutes.

Into this century and they still held the hoodoo over us.

But it's a long road that has no turning and along came Croke Park and I don't think there has ever been a more satisfying Fermanagh triumph than that.

Pay back time, big time.

In the lead up to last Sunday's game, there was conflicting opinion as which of Armagh or Down would be the more suitable opposition for us. But of course we had no influence in deciding that.

Now that it is Armagh, even those who in the Erne camp who would have preferred Down, will be readily able to put the positive spin on things.

One of these will be that Armagh have already had their revenge for their Croke Park debacle so their raw desire to make amends for that will have been diluted to some extent at least.

But all that speculation is someway down the line.

Meanwhile as the Fermanagh support continue to bask in the euphoria of anticipating the Clones showdown, presumably the county panel will have put the Derry triumph behind them.

That match is history. It's the next one that now counts.

A spin off from reaching the final has seen the introduction of subsidiary competition for clubs. Lessons have been absorbed from the experiences of 2004 and CCC is to be commended on the swift work in organising a competition to fill the vacuum.

Subsidiary competitions rarely work but this particular venture could prove to be the exception to the rule for it does have a number of plus points.

It is to be played in presumably favourable weather conditions at the height of the club season. It has a relatively brief running span.

It should be obvious to all clubs that it is in their own interest to provide football of some sort for the vast bulk of their senior panel football which will keep their players in at least reasonable shape until league competition resumes.

No one can gripe that the needs of the ordinary club player are not being addressed.

Finally, and I just couldn't let this go by. I hear that a number of GAA people, some of them high profile indeed, have had to make alternative travel arrangements for mid July.

We won't name them and shame them .

All we can say is, "O, ye of little faith"