Fermanagh captain Shannan McQuade will lead out her teammates at Glennon Brothers Pearse Park in Longford this Sunday as the Erne look to banish the demons of last year.

The game will be a replica of the weekend’s coming fixture against Limerick in the TG4 All-Ireland Junior Championship semi-final as Fermanagh aim to go a step further than last year and will have confidence on their side after four wins from four in Group A.

“Yeah there’s been a good buzz around training coming off four wins, but I think we want to keep the foot on the pedal,” said McQuade speaking ahead of the weekend’s encounter.

“The league campaign was very successful, going without a loss throughout and then when it got to the big matches, the semi-final, we were beat, so, we’ve kept the heads down and kept training.”

The wing half-back admitted it’s hard to compare this year with last year’s game with new manager CJ McGourty now under the helm.

There will be a number of new faces from that affair including McQuade herself who missed last year’s semi-final through illness.

“I think obviously Limerick is very familiar to us, we played them in the league whereas Louth we haven’t played in a few years, so that would have been going into a bit of the unknown,” she added.

“Obviously it doesn’t matter who you get or when you get them, the aim is to always get to the final. But no, maybe it suits us better to play Limerick when we have played them before, and we know them well.”

Fermanagh defeated The Shannonsiders 0-09 to 0-04 when the sides met in Rathkeale in Division 4.

A campaign that ended in agony for McQuade and her teammates as they went on to lose by a point in the league semi-final against Carlow.

“I think definitely at the time it was hard to take and we were really disappointed at the time considering how well we were going and to let that slip, you know, in the last few seconds of the game,” she continued.

“I think it helped us in the long run. If it was all smooth sailing when it came to the championship maybe we would have got a shock then, so, maybe it was good to get that shock early on in the year.”

A five-game winning run, including an Ulster Junior Championship win, has left McGourty’s side in good stead for Sunday’s trip to Longford.

An impressive season so far could become an even better one come Sunday evening with McQuade admitting it’s been a standout year even with such a long county career: "It’s probably been my favourite year of playing for Fermanagh.

"It’s such a good group and we’ve really left no stone unturned, there’s times you think we should have done this, we should have done that, but this year we feel like we’re finally ready to do the championship properly.

"Sarah McCarville has been out for us but apart from it’s a full squad. The management has been brilliant, with Sean (McCartney) and CJ from Tyrone and we have Conor (McGovern) and Kane (Connor) as well, so, it’s nice to have the Fermanagh boys in too.

"It’s good that the boys aren’t long after playing football themselves. It’s been refreshing that they were playing not too long ago themselves.

"We’ve definitely enjoyed having them in and having that experience.”