THE exciting final stages, with points swapped in injury time, left the crowd of 14,783 limp at the end of this first round Ulster championship match at Clones.

The football championship may not see a more pulsating finish this season. It proved utterly frustrating for a gallant. if clearly inexperienced, Fermanagh who had come so close to breaking a five-year hoodoo in the Ulster series.

Cavan were lucky to survive to live another day next Sunday at the same venue. An equalising point by substitute Anthony Forde almost five minutes into second half injury time did the trick.

This was a match that see-sawed in quality between moderate and poor, mistake-prone. football. The slippery surface did not help. But, from the 32nd minute of the second half when Raymond Gallagher put Fermanagh on levels terms, at 1-10 apiece, with a goal of truly classical proportions it was a roller coaster ride to the heart-stopping end.

Cavan lost a man in the 26th minute of the first half when right corner back Philip Kermath was sent off by referee Jim Curran for a second bookable offence. Yet they had many gilt-edged chances to put their naive if brave-hearted opponents away during the opening minutes of the second half.

Jason Reilly was the worst culprit. missing two goal chances. In all, Cavan hit four of their 10 wides from easy positions during the opening four minutes of the second period.

Fermanagh will also rue a wide by late call-up Liam McBarron during the hectic moments in injury time. Moments later man-of-the-match Gallagher shot them into the lead with three minutes of injury time already played. As more time elapsed, delirious Fermanagh supporters feared that referee Jim Curran's watch had stopped.

Fermanagh manager Pat King had no complaints about the time-keeping of the referee, but admitted to disappointment because of the way his team failed to utilise the extra man for more than half the game.

"Our game is based on possession football, we like to run the ball, but we managed to do this only in the last few minutes after the goal," he said.

Earlier, Fermanagh looked inept as they tried to create the overlap when opportunities arose. They often looked badly disorganised, and at one stage in the second half three of their players were seen going for the one ball. Corner back Paddy McGuinness, wing back Just in Gilheaney, before taken off, and Colm Courtney, all tried to make a fist of the extra man role. That they failed was due entirely to the great resolve of the Cavan team.

King described the first-half goal his side conceded, scored by Dermot McCabe as "soft" but said: "They (Cavan) hardly looked three divisions up on us.

Fermanagh took wind advantage for the first hall, but unwisely opted for a game which featured a packed-defence, and the hope of the odd break.

Still, Fermanagh did create chances. Paul Brewster was breaking the ball effectively and Cavan's Stephen King suffered as a result. There was also the penetrative play of Colin Curran and Kieran Donnelly, the relentless threat posed by Raymond Gallagher and the effective roaming tactics of Liam McBarron.

A great deal more should have been put on the scoreboard but, alas, some of the Fermanagh finishing was quite pathetic, resulting in seven first-half wides.

For Cavan, Peter Reilly hit some magnificent points from all sorts of angles and distances with the placed-ball. His summing up was: "We expected nothing easy from Fermanagagh. They worked hard and got the goal that they needed near the end. They would not have come back at us without it." That goal from Gallagher - he scored 1-7 of Fermanagh's total, including four points from frees - will be a contender for the `goal of the championship'.

There were half a dozen probing passes involved in the movement, which started on the right wing and was rounded off clinically by Paul Brewster, Colin Curran and then Gallagher, whose searing shot to the roof of the net left Cavan goalkeeper Paul O'Dowd powerless.