With promotion out of Division Four and a place in the league final at stake this Sunday, Fermanagh Ladies manager, CJ McGourty, knows his players will need no extra motivation when they take on Carlow.

The pair played out a draw in stormy conditions in the league - the only points Fermanagh dropped - and McGourty is expecting another big challenge when the teams meet.

But the Antrim man believes his team have prepared well since they played their last league game against Derry.

A challenge game against Tyrone was thrown in among the training to iron out issues.

"Things have been going well and we are preparing as best we can," said the Fermanagh manager.

"Everything is going according to plan. We played Tyrone a couple of weeks ago just to keep us ticking over and we have just been training away as normal. No injury concerns so happy enough."

Speaking after the Derry game, McGourty said he was disappointed with aspects of Fermanagh's performances and he hopes the weeks in between have helped to work on those aspects.

"That’s why I wanted to play the Tyrone game to try and iron out a few sorts of issues that we maybe had

"We brought girls in [against Derry], we changed the team and that probably had an impact on it as well.

"We just ironed out a few wee things like handling errors. Set up wise we were a bit unstructured that was obviously with the personnel change and people maybe adapting new positions for the Derry game."

McGourty believes that if they do manage to do this then Fermanagh can put together a full 60-minute performance.

"We are good on both sides of the pitch when we want to be, I would just like that wee bit more consistency in it.

"We've been good in different areas like going forward for 10,15,20 minutes of a match and then we dip and the same defensively.

"We seem to be good for 30/40 minutes or even one half and then we sort of dip so it's just trying to get that consistency level for that 60 minutes at both ends of the pitch because there is no doubt the ability is there to carry that out for 60 minutes if the players want to.

"It was just important to get back to training, keep the training standards high and make sure we got another game under our belt against Tyrone."

There would be no better time for it all to come together than on Sunday against Carlow.

A win would not only mean a league final spot but also promotion to Division Three for Fermanagh.

But even though Carlow finished fourth, McGourty is taking nothing for granted.

"Carlow have some good forwards to be fair.

"They are dogged enough and I know they finished fourth in the league but they drew with us and I know they will take a lot of confidence from that, so we’ll need to be on our A game on Sunday to make sure we get over the line because I don’t think the Derry performance will get us over the line.

"We are going to have to improve from the last day to get anything against Carlow."

On the possibility of moving out of Division Four, McGourty continued: "The motivation is there to try and get out of this division and try and build on it.

"I said at the start of the year I didn’t want to be a 'yo-yo' team but to start yo-yo-ing you have to get up.

"That’s the main aim on Sunday and it’s the biggest match of the year.

"I think if you can start moving up the divisions and start playing better opposition you start to become a better team."

Fermanagh take on Carlow in the semi-final of the Lidl Ladies NFL Division Four on Sunday, March 23 at 2pm in Lannleire.