Fermanagh's third defeat of the National Football League (NFL) Division Two to Armagh sees them facing a crunch encounter with Louth in around 10 days' time.

The four-point reversal in Brewster Park last Sunday came on the back of defeats to Cork and Donegal, but Fermanagh boss, Kieran Donnelly, knows his side cannot afford to dwell on the what-ifs and maybes and instead take the positives from recent games when they do travel to the Wee County.

And in the Armagh game, there were plenty of positives to take he felt.

Apart from a spell in the second half when Armagh opened up a lead they would not relinquish, Fermanagh matched them in most sectors.

"Going in against teams like Armagh I thought our performance levels were high and there were large aspects of the game that I was pleased with, to be honest.

"I thought our attitude, our work rate and our energy at critical stages were really good.

"I thought defensively we were compact and we sensed danger well. Even though they had two goal chances, they came from us giving the ball away so I felt we recovered well in those scenarios. Our scramble defence was good and that's often down to attitude.

"All we have to do is take the positives out of it and reflect on those parts of the game where we let Armagh get the run on us and just bring that into Louth."

Much of Fermanagh's good work was seen in the first half. Despite a shaky opening 10 minutes, the Ernemen got to grips with Armagh: "That first 10-minute period we started well and got the first score. But they pinned us in on the kick out and just created a wee bit of mayhem for five minutes and Armagh feed off that chaos.

"We were very clear on that. They have so much energy and athleticism in key areas if you relinquish control to them they can do harm and that looked like it was going to be the case but I thought we settled well and that was another positive from the game.

"We grasped back control when they looked like getting on top. From there until the end of the half I thought we were in a good place and we took a lot of good scores."

A lot of that was down to Fermanagh's workrate and desire from players to make those hard yards in attack and defence.

Fionan O'Brien, who made his first start of the league, exemplified this when he soared across the turf to put pressure on Andrew Murnin who was on the front foot with an open goal as Ross Bogue had pushed up the field.

Donnelly paid tribute to O'Brien on his performance which was probably a long time coming following a serious injury: "We look at all aspects of the game but we thought [our work ethic] was really good and all our GPS outputs, our top speeds were coming from those times when we were getting back and that is just an attitude and intent to recover.

"Fionan's ones especially. Credit to Fionan I thought he had a great game. He had a really serious injury and missed a lot of football and for him to come in and play 70 minutes at that level and play at that pace is a credit to his ability and athleticism."

Another player who made a return to the Fermanagh jersey was James McMahon and Donnelly was full of praise for his first outing of the year.

"I thought James was very good. He brings that bit of experience of just when to manage the ball.

"We felt his last year with us was one of his best years in the Fermanagh jersey in terms of ability to go forward and take scores and he brought that again on Sunday. He had a great point at a critical time.

"He has worked very hard to get himself back in shape but we knew we would only get 45/50 minutes out of him and I thought for that time he was on the pitch acquitted themselves well."

With March 16 in Ardee looking like a do-or-die meeting with Louth, Donnelly believes that being in these high-pressure games is where his players want to be.

And it is now down to them to try and bring a complete performance to stay in Division Two.

He wants his players to embrace the challenge and he believes they will: "It's exactly where you want to be.

"When you train hard and do all the winter training you just want big games. I was saying that to the players after the match we have two championship games now to play for. That’s why you play football, for the big game experience.

"If somebody had said to us at the start of the year you were going to Louth and it’s a tough place to go it would be a shootout between us and Louth to stay in Division Two you would have taken it.

"It's up to us to look forward to it and bring positivity to it and bring a large part of our good passages of play from all our previous games into Ardee.

"I'm very determined we can do that and the players are all looking forward to it."