McCormack delighted with Fenagh's quarter-final display

Much like Hannibal in the old A-Team TV series, Joe McCormack had the countenance of a content man the plan came together in Fenagh St Caillins’ 16 point mauling of Leitrim Gaels in Sunday’s Connacht Gold Leitrim SFC Quarter-Final.

Rather than try to downplay the performance, Joe (inset) embraced Fenagh’s display by stressing how much work went into it: “Over the last couple of weeks, the last couple of games, we’re working on different things in training and trying to get different aspects of our game right. Today a lot of stuff fell into place, a lot of what we’ve been working on came off. We couldn’t be but happy with the performance of the lads, they’ve worked extremely hard so very happy.”

With 16 points between them, Ryan and Riordan O’Rourke took a lot of the plaudits but  Fenagh’s dominance was built on an exceptional middle eight effort with Donal Wrynn leading the way for the League champions  and big performances from the Gilheaney brothers, Mark Keegan, Daniel McLoughlin, Conor Dwyer and Eoin McLoughlin.

Ominous Fenagh demolish Gaels challenge with ruthless efficiency

FENAGH ST CAILLINS 1-22 LEITRIM GAELS 2-3

Not surprisingly, Joe agreed with that assessment: “I agree with that - Ryan and Riordan are exceptional talents, anywhere inside 30 metres they can put the ball over the bar but they need to get the ball and we had massive performances from Jack Gilheaney at centre-back, you had Donal and Danny in the middle of the field, you had Tom.

“The workrate of these boys was immense. You had Shane Smith tracking back, Mark Keegan coming from defence, Caillin O’Rourke had a great game - it was a team performance, you couldn’t pick out one man.”

The notion that Fenagh are hitting top form at just the right time was buttressed by their performance against Leitrim Gaels and Joe agreed that momentum is building for his charges: “I asked them before the game to give me everything they had and in fairness, they did and worked extremely hard for each other. In fairness, it was a really good team performance.

“We’ve had it tough throughout the League and championship, missing players through injury. We had a lot of injuries throughout the League and even coming into the championship, we missed Ryan against Leitrim Gaels in the first round, he was carrying a knock so slowly but surely, we’re starting to get everybody back on track. 

“Lads are training well so there is a little bit of momentum behind us but that is solely because everybody is back training, injury free. We picked up a couple of knocks there, hopefully nothing serious so we’d be happy.”

Fans out in force for Connacht Gold Leitrim SFC Quarter-Finals - GALLERY

The weather may have ended the day prematurely but fans turned out in their droves for the Connacht Gold Leitrim SFC Quarter Finals in Avant Money Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada on Sunday and Observer photographer Willie Donnellan was there to capture some great images of supporters enjoying the day - before the rain! See who you can spot!

With the second quarter-final postponed due to the weather, Fenagh don’t know who they will face in the semi-finals yet but Joe believes that any of the teams left in the competition have good claims on the Fenagh Cup: “Leitrim is a very competitive championship, we’d be used to watching football in Longford, Cavan and Westmeath and Leitrim is probably one of the most competitive championships in that any one of four teams is able to win it.

“You have Carrick up there, Mohill overturned Carrick, we were probably flattered by the result against Ballinamore, a six point win. Manorhamilton are still in the mix but it is very hard to look past the likes of Carrick and Mohill at the minute but on a day, I wouldn’t fancy facing Ballinamore or Manorhamilton either.”