Fermanagh manager Pete McGrath has said that his young team can be proud of their performance after refusing to lie down and take a beating against Dublin.
Fermanagh scored two goals during a stirring second-half performance and finished within eight points of Dublin on a scoreline of 2-23 to 2-15.
Playing with the breeze, Dublin led by 1-13 to 0-06 at half-time but goals from Sean Quigley and Tomás Corrigan meant Fermanagh left the field with heads held high.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport's Ger Canning, McGrath said: “I’m absolutely delighted with the way the team played, particularly in the second half.
"The first half, our lack of experience showed, we stood off Dublin too much, gave them far too many easy kick-outs and they were able to build quite easily from the back and get scores.
"We had nine wides in the first half. We were ten points down at half-time and we faced a choice: we could either lie down in front of them, or we could go out and fight and show the character and spirit and skill that we’d shown all year, and in the second half the players did that.”
The Fermanagh fans responded to the efforts of their team in the second half, particularly during a raucous final 10 minutes.
Quigley’s goal was controversial as it appeared the Fermanagh man pushed Stephen Cluxton over the line, but McGrath felt the score was “no less than our efforts deserved”.
"The energy they put into that second half, the way they kept going, some of the scores they got, some of the fluency in our play and at the very end - when the match was over - the reaction of the Fermanagh crowd to the team was nearly unprecedented in Croke Park," McGrath added.
McGrath believes that experiencing of the intensity of playing Dublin at Croke Park will stand to Fermanagh. “This group of players is a very young team, about half of that team, it’s their very first year playing championship. We have had an excellent season and I think we signed off today with a performance that we can all be proud of.”
