Greene glad to see Fintona’s fighting qualities

UPBEAT Fintona boss Martin Greene maintains that his side must continue to ‘fight to the end’ after taking a giant step towards securing their Intermediate status with back-to-back victories over the past week.

Home wins over fellow strugglers Clogher and Kildress has handed the Pearses vital breathing space at the foot of the Division Two table, though such is the concertinaed nature of the bottom half of the league, they can ill-afford to relax.

Similar to any newly promoted team Fintona have encountered a few teething problems at times as they adjusted to life in the second tier, but Martin Greene insisted that the attitude of his squad could not be questioned.

“ The challenge for us is to perform ever week. We needed to put two or three games back to back. The boys are up from Division Three and we know we have to fight in every game.”

Fermanagh native Greene steered the Pearses to the Junior Championship title last season, but just a few weeks out before they meet one of the county’s traditional heavyweights Moortown in the first round of the 2024 Intermediate Championship, he cautioned that even now the League remained the priority.

“ We will look forward to the Championship if we stay up. If we don’t stay up and we don’t achieve our targets then the Championship will be a dampener. What we want to do is finish strong in the league and look forward to the Championship and then give it a rattle. But right now until we are safe the league is everything here at the minute.

>body2text<“ The Championship will be bonus territory. Unlike last year this time we will be massive underdogs against a team of Moortown’s pedigree so it is all about the league this year.”

Speaking in the immediate aftermath of the come from behind triumph over Clogher last midweek, Greene stated that it was important to make a trip St Lawrence’s Park a difficult assignment for any visiting teams.

“ We were happy with the result tonight and the attitude was spot on for most of the game. Especially at home we are trying to make it tough for teams who come here. We knew it was going to be a battle against Clogher.

“ We are down at the bottom of the league and trying to push on a bit. The boys are fighting and they are showing that bit of quality to finish games off which is good to see.

“ We were disappointed with how we played against Naomh Eoghan last week. We felt we made a lot of basic mistakes and we have been looking to improve on that which I felt we did. Our ball handling was a lot better and there was a lot of good scores from play. All we can do is take that encouragement into our remaining games.”

As was the case repeatedly last year the likes of Caolan Donnelly, Jared Brogan, Conor McGoldrick and Aaron McCarney spearheaded the Fintona fightback against the Eire Ogs. Greene stated that with limited numbers to select from it was imperative that everyone stood up to be counted.

“ We have a relatively small squad and you feel that when a few boys are injured and another one or two have emigrated. I suppose every club is the same in that regard. All you can do is ask to get a performance out of them and I guarantee we will fight to the end.”