Creating great expectations

All-Ireland SFC/Semi-final Fermanagh v Mayo: The signs were there but most of us chose to ignore them. The graph of Fermanagh's season is well known.

Start with the first bit from the controversial departure of last year's manager Dominic Corrigan and many of the first-team players and through a downbeat National League campaign, culminating in relegation and on to the threshold of a championship encounter with All-Ireland champions Tyrone.

The prospect of that match must have hung in front of the largely new team like a chimera. We know now that Tyrone, this season, weren't what they had been but back then their thrashing of Derry had done little to reduce the champions' menace - particularly for a county whose two rare visits to Croke Park last year were scarred by nine and 19-point defeats at the hands of their neighbours.

Fermanagh's feisty performance last June was a major surprise but when Tyrone were well beaten by Donegal a fortnight later, sprightly was the jumping to wrong conclusions.

Mark Little is one of those newcomers and his pace and persistence have been a prominent part of the team's fast moving style. He reviews the manner in which unfulfilled early-season ambitions gave way to something remarkable.

"The intention in the league was to stay up after the bad start to the year with a lot of players missing and results not going our way. We were disappointed by that not working out but we're playing a lot better now this summer."

Did he feel the team was going to go as well in the championship as it has?

"I'm not sure. I thought we'd get pretty far in the qualifiers once we got a couple of games under our belt. We expected to beat Tyrone. Our whole focus was on that game and it was a real disappointment when we lost. We were all down for the next week but got a rest after Tipperary pulled out of the qualifiers. It all lifted from there."

The Tipperary match created a storm when the county refused to field a team after a row over the staging of a club hurling match triggered - in an echo of Fermanagh's own controversy - the resignation of manager Andy Shortall and the withdrawal of players.

From then on Fermanagh's trajectory has been upwards with the elite scalps of Meath, Cork, Donegal and Armagh all added to their belt.

The Cork match was the watershed. A first trip to Croke Park since last year's dreadful visits and big-name opposition, it prompted the team's best performance.

Aside from the pinpoint shooting and resilience shown when calling in Cork's three-point lead midway through the second half, the day was feted for the marriage of Liam McBarron who was helicoptered off to his rescheduled wedding to Dublin women's footballer Anne Marie Cahill.

With his honeymoon also put back, to Christmas, McBarron is coming to terms with preparing for the biggest day in the county's football history. He feels the rhythm of the summer with its frequent qualifier matches have helped him and the team ascend the ladder without stopping to look down and contemplate their attitude.

"We've been playing games every other week and you just go out of one job and into the next. Your focus is on the next game and you don't get the chance to look back at all. I've hardly thought about what's happened."

He is one of the more experienced players but is just back on the panel after taking a break from the commuting between Dublin where he lives and training back home.

"I took a year out. Driving up from Dublin is very intense. You're leaving work at three o'clock in the afternoon and up here in the field for half seven and you're back down that night. It catches up with you so I needed a bit of time out to recharge the batteries. But I'm always keen to play with Fermanagh, as proud as the next man to put on the green jersey. Not everyone gets an opportunity to play county football."

He remains unfazed by the progress this year, neither claiming foresight of it nor getting over-excited by being 70 minutes from an All-Ireland final.

"You live in optimism, train hard and work hard. You expect the team to perform well."