Fermanagh manager Kieran Donnelly says that his side will relish the challenge posed by Donegal when the sides meet on Saturday week in Letterkenny.

Donnelly’s charges have settled well into life in Division Two as they remain unbeaten after two games as they followed up an opening day draw in Navan with a four point victory over Kildare in Brewster Park last Saturday night.

And the Erne boss believes that his side will take great confidence from Saturday night’s display as they get ready for Jim McGuinness’ Donegal side who have won both their opening fixtures.

“Donegal is an excellent team, and we know that. They are the talk of the country at the minute and they are thinking of pushing for All Irelands.

“But that’s the teams you want to play and that’s the challenge you want to come up against and these players will take confidence from this and take that into two weeks time,” said Donnelly after the win over Kildare.

Goals in either half from Declan McCusker and Sean Cassidy were key in Fermanagh’s win and the overall performance delighted Donnelly.

“I was very pleased with our all round performance. I thought we showed great composure in possession tonight which was key against a physically big Kildare team.

“That was our real gameplan all week and I think we did that well. We were patient enough to find the pockets of spaces and get those 1v1s that I felt we needed to generate against a side of their quality. I thought that was key to our success and some of our scores in the first half were excellent.

“I felt we could suck them across and get players in those 1v1 situations and that materialised, so very happy with that.”

Although Fermanagh had been the better team in the opening quarter, the game remained tight on the scoreboard but a black card for Kildare’s Brian Byrne saw the home side take advantage to open up a gap between the sides.

“I think you do have to (take advantage of it) in the modern game. It is not easy, because teams are so well set up now even with a man down they will come and they will be very defensive.

“I just thought we were patient, I think the key is not to be frantic when you are the man up and just keep that patience in the pass and I thought we did that,” he added.

A goal late in the half gave Fermanagh a six point cushion going in at the break and although Kildare did rally at the start of the second half, Donnelly felt that his side’s ability to respond to that was crucial in them going on to win.

“I felt it was key in the second half that we kept answering their scores with one of ours and I thought we did that well. I thought we had a couple of great breaks from our kick-outs, I felt if we could win our own kick-out we could get in behind them, and that materialised.”

And a second goal from Sean Cassidy with eight minutes left put Fermanagh into a strong position with the composure shown pleasing Donnelly.

“It was a great move and we have that in our locker, it’s just about that bit of composure at the end. Cass did very well, he showed great composure at that stage,” he said.

All in all then it is a positive start to the league for Donnelly and his side.

“It really is. Look, we have trained extremely hard and it’s just rewards for the players. We did feel there’s areas that if we addressed from last week we would win the game tonight and that was the most pleasing thing, I think we did a lot of things right so it’s a good place to be,” he stated.