Fermanagh's ambition off the pitch is being mirrored by impressive performances on it, says former manager Peter Canavan.
The Erne County face Cavan for the second weekend in a row when the sides meet on Saturday evening in Croke Park in the Division 3 final.
While many fancied the Breffni men to make it back-to-back promotions, Fermanagh have been something of a surprise package.
Kieran Donnelly’s side ended the group stage with a two-point win at Kingspan Breffni, but a feature of the campaign has been their ability to come out the right side of close encounters.
Four of their games have been decided by a point, with the Ulster side coming out the right side of the result on three occasions.
In a county with just 22 clubs – one of those, Lisbellaw St Patrick's GAA, is hurling only – the challenges they face are obvious, but that is not proving to be a deterrent to ambition.
Work on a multi-million revamp of its Centre of Excellence at Lissan could start before the year is out, and speaking on the RTÉ GAA podcast, Canavan, manager of Fermanagh in 2012 and 2013, has huge belief in the efforts going on behind the scenes.
"There is serious development work going on," he said.
"They are ahead a lot of so called bigger counties in terms of ambition. Behind the scenes they have a lot of good people in the right places, and we are beginning to see that on the field of play."
A national title on top of promotion would be icing on the cake, but there will be little time to dwell on early season progress with a provincial quarter-final against holders Derry looming.
Canavan, who had Donnelly as part of his Fermanagh backroom team, has been very impressed by the rate of progress shown by the men in green.
"He (Donnelly) knows his football inside out, and he knows this Fermanagh team inside out. At the start of the year, I didn’t hear many people predicting Fermanagh would get out of Division 3.
"What he has now is a good blend of youth and experience.
"Josh Largo-Ellis, Ultan Kelm has been sensational for them up front. Talk about blistering speed, being direct and hurting opposition. He has brought a completely different element to their style of play.
"Ryan Jones is still dominant around the pitch. The Cullen brothers [Lee and Che] are now experienced campaigners, they know what they are about and bring a real edge. There is a nice balance to their game.
"They are trying to attack more than they have in recent years and it is paying dividends for them."
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