The County Fermanagh Junior Super Cup squad have won the George Henderson MBE Memorial Tournament for the first time in their history, after defeating County Tyrone and drawing with Armagh in last weekend’s tournament.

Ciaran Black’s young team missed out on winning the previous County Armagh tournament on goal difference after conceding an injury-time equaliser, but there was no late drama this time around as Fermanagh followed up a victory over Tyrone with a goalless draw against Armagh to win the pre-Super Cup warm-up tournament based in Tyrone.

“After missing out on the Armagh tournament, it is great for them to get it this time around,” acknowledged Black.

“It meant a lot to us. They have done a lot of hard work recently and they felt they came up short in the Armagh tournament. They went back to training and pushed themselves on, and it was good to get the reward this time. They were ecstatic.”

The historic triumph gives the squad a boost in their Super Cup preparations, and Black believes the experience will be a big help going forward.

“All the counties are going up feeling like underdogs, and in our group especially we have that feeling, but we know we can play football and now we know we can win,” he said.

“We are going up there into the unknown but if we can play the way that they have done then who knows. We can put it up to anyone up there.”

Fermanagh started the tournament with a 1-0 win over Tyrone, Alfie Jones running on to Jay Ely’s pass to net a second-half winner.

They added another point to their competition total with a goalless draw against Armagh, with a missed penalty not affecting the destination of the trophy.

“It was two different types of games,” said the manager.

“They were physical games and it was good to see them pull through that. It is always a tough game against Tyrone, and they made it tough. It was very physical. We had a poor first-half that was not up to our standard, but we went in 0-0 at half-time.

"We made a few changes and they came straight out in the second half and started to dominate the game as we know they can. They learned from the Down game (last week) how to manage their lead, and it's great to see such young lads take that experience from one game and carry it into the next.”

“We had played Armagh two weeks ago and won 2-1 so we know they were going to come out firing to try to flip the result. They were 3-0 down against Strabane and had come back to three each so they were on a bit of a high and it was another really tough game. We missed a penalty that would have sealed it for us, but Tyrone had won the other game and all we needed was a point.”

Next up for the Junior squad is their home tournament in Lisnaskea, where they will face County Antrim for the first time before a rematch against Tyrone.

“They are all on a high now heading to the Fermanagh one,” said Black.

“We have Antrim first and they always have a good team because they have a big pool of players to pick from. Then we have a rematch against Tyrone.

"The Tyrone game finished with them picking up a red card after a poor challenge so I’d say this game is going to be a bit fiery. It’s good for them to show a bit of fight and show they can get roughed up and get up and go again. It is all experience before the real thing. After winning in Tyrone, it would be great to come back and win in Fermanagh.”