By John Harrington

The best sportspeople tend to be their own harshest critics.

It’s why they’re capable of routinely reaching high standards, because that’s what the minimum they always set for themselves.

So even though Fermanagh’s Sean Corrigan won the Lory Meagher Cup Player of the Year for 2021 after hitting 2-20 from play over the course of four matches, it’s the one day that didn’t go as well as he would have liked that still lingers with him.

“I would say my championship started terribly,” Corrigan told GAA.ie. “I actually costed us the first game against Cavan with some of my misses. I definitely didn't think then we'd be having this conversation now.

“After that I think both individually and as a team we just seemed to click into gear. In the quarter-final against Monaghan maybe home advantage helped us a lot and we just seemed to get better with each game, the three knock-out games, after that.

“In a weird way losing the first game might have helped us.”

Fermanagh certainly couldn’t have timed their run any better. After victories over Monaghan and Longford they hit a perfect pitch in the Lory Meagher Cup Final itself when they avenged that earlier defeat to Cavan in some style by beating the same opposition by 3-26 to 1-17.

“There's no better stadium in Ireland to produce a performance like that,” says Corrigan. “Tom Keenan was obviously the star that day, but further back the field we had the likes of Rory Porteous, Aidan Flanagan, Luca McCusker, Francie McBrien doing outstanding work all year.

“It was just great that it all came together for us on the big day.

“It was all the more satisfying to win the Lory Meagher Cup this year after losing last year's Final. And, on a personal level, I actually broke a finger in the first half of last year's Final and needed surgery last December on it.

“So, it was obviously nice to win it this year on a personal level. And, on a team level, we felt last year we just didn't perform as well as we felt we could have in last year's Final.

“It was even sweeter to win it this year as well because the competition was a lot stronger with Monaghan and Longford in it from the Allianz League division above us.”

Fermanagh’s Lory Meagher Cup success is all the more remarkable for the fact that the vast majority of their panel is drawn from the county’s single senior club, Lisbellaw, who are actually in action this weekend in the AIB Ulster Intermediate Club Hurling semi-final against Tyrone’s Carrickmore.

“There's no football in Lisbellaw at all,” says Corrigan of his club. “We're completely hurling only. That's a serious testament to the work that went on at underage when I was growing up and that's still going on that it keeps producing a team that can basically compete at county level.

“We'd see a lot of each other. We're on the road with the county for the first five or six months of the year and then most of the same faces are back with the club for the second half of the year.

“Being honest, we'd love it if there were a few more clubs in Fermanagh for sure because it would strengthen the panel.

“There's a lot of good work being done at underage so we're really hoping that will translate into more adult clubs in future. I guess we just try to take whatever positives there is out of it, we should know each other's game inside out and it's almost more of a club set-up than a county set-up.”

The hope is that there will be more than just one senior hurling club in Fermanagh in the not too distant future.

This year two new adult teams were formed, Erne Gaels Belleek and South Fermanagh Gaels, who played each other in a Junior Championship and will hopefully step up to the senior grade in the not too distant future.

Further encouragement comes from the development of the game at underage level where eight clubs now compete in the U-13 grade and five in the U-15 grade.

“It's definitely a great stat,” says Corrigan. “There's some volunteers doing brilliant work. The likes of Kieran Farmer and Emmet Conlon before him are really trying to put the structures in place.

“I think everyone accepts that it's sometimes hard to translate underage progress into senior progress. But to the credit of Erne Gaels-Belleek and South Fermanagh Gaels they fielded adult teams and even already there's a few players on the back of that who will probably be brought into the county panel.

“It's a good start and something my own club Lisbellaw are delighted to see happening.”

Corrigan is looking forward now to testing himself at a higher level in the Nickey Rackard Cup next year and believes the future is bright for Fermanagh hurling.

“Definitely, that's what the hope would be anyway,” he said. “There's younger boys in the panel who once they get exposure to the higher level will hopefully push on in the short-term.

“Then, in the long-term, there are children in Fermanagh who will now get the chance to play hurling the whole way through. I know for a fact that anyone who takes up hurling and sticks with it doesn't regret it.”