Last July, on the same weekend that Fermanagh had qualified for the last 12 of the All Ireland series for the third time in four summers, O'Connor's Kerry had been humiliated in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, and his captain and surrogate son, Declan O'Sullivan, booed off the field. But that same night Kerry made a decision. They would agree to get along and to move along.

As O'Connor related his predicament at that time, the Fermanagh players could relate to it too. They were just after losing all seven of their league games. If you threw in the three games in the McKenna Cup, then their only result had been a draw against St Mary's College. "We'd been a very fractious unit throughout the league, " Mulgrew admitted last week. As O'Connor reminded them in the new Breaffy international complex outside Castlebar though, it's amazing what some honest talking can do.

O'Connor's wisdom though only validated a hunch Mulgrew and his players had been beginning to come around to.

If there was a day they drew a line in the sand, then it was on the eve of their last league game against Donegal. The previous two weeks they'd been hammered by Dublin and Cork, with Ryan McCluskey leaving the panel after the Dublin defeat and Mulgrew barracked by supporters after the Cork debacle. The morning of the Donegal game, county chairman Peter Carty assured both players and management that the county board were fully behind them.

"Peter's talk would have been critical in the turn around, " Mulgrew says. "He gave a great talk and it gave us all belief. Through the league certain people had abused some of the players. It all cast a heavy burden over us and it probably affected everybody's confidence. That talk was the key moment."

Crucially too, Mulgrew took a leaf out of O'Connor's book. His players and his team and approach had gone stale so he reinvented it. Ignore the side Fermanagh announced last Thursday. It's a dummy team. The side that will start against Tyrone today will probably resemble the one that rattled Donegal last month closer to the one released during the week.

Shane McDermott, the side's resident centre-back since the unforgettable summer of 2004, seemed re-energised in the new slot at full-back in Ballybofey and should move in there in Clones too; with Tyrone having a preference for low, hard ball rather than the high, direct one favoured by Armagh (and Barry Owens), McDermott is more suited for the lateral quickness of a Niall Gormley, Colm Cavanagh or even Colm McCullagh.

Barry Owens, who played in midfield against Donegal, won't play there today, but from centre-back he can offer physical and some aerial assistance under kickouts to the probable midfield duo of Marty McGrath and Tom Brewster. Don't be surprised too if Jonathon McGurn, a peripheral player since last year's league and not named on the official side, appears at full-forward in a Donaghy-like role. He played there against Donegal, and while he hasn't quite recaptured the promise he showed in Killarney last March, if he starts well, then he can catch fire and release Ciaran O'Reilly, one of Queen's Sigerson's stars, out to the half-forward line.

They still ended up losing that Donegal game, by an injury-time Kevin McMenamin point, but it's not the first time Fermanagh will have taken solace from losing the last game of a league campaign. In 2004, they lost in Pairc Ui Rinn, but left Cork that night believing they had been the better side until the floodlights had come on in the closing minutes and that conviction was validated in Croke Park against the same opposition three months later.

Against Donegal, Fermanagh had performed and they had fought, and while it might have been a shadow Donegal side, in effect, so is Tyrone's today too.

Fermanagh made another breakthrough that day. It was the first time all year that they'd reached 10 scores or more. They've become too reliant on goals, or clean sheets at the other end, and too predictable; only Eamonn Maguire, and possibly O'Reilly, of the forwards have pushed on since that vintage summer of 2004.

Defensively and collectively they've had problems too, epitomised by the Ryan McCluskey situation.

McCluskey has been one of the primary reasons why Fermanagh have had one of the best full-back lines in football this past five years, with many in the county feeling he deserved an All Star ahead of Barry Owens last year. This year has been a testing year for him though. His father had been sick, and finally passed away in recent weeks. His commitment to Dungannon Swifts also caused ripples of dissatisfaction, with other players resenting that he and Shane McCabe got minutes in the league game against Tyrone only hours after both playing soccer.

In previous years McCluskey was able to combine both codes, but with Dungannon's participation in the Setanta Cup nearly every Monday night, Fermanagh was losing out. After the Dublin game, Mulgrew and McCluskey exchanged frank words and the player had dropped off the panel before he injured his leg in last months' Irish Cup final.

But since then, Fermanagh have taken O'Connor's advice.

Get along and move on.

"These guys are the sons of Fermanagh people, " Mulgrew defiantly said last week. "This Fermanagh team is going to go out and give of their best."

"It's like everything else: we didn't go through a good patch but you have to put it behind you, " says Liam McBarron.

"If you start dwelling on the past, you may as well forget about the future. Yes, those defeats did affect the morale of the players because the work was being done. They were not getting the results.

But there has been a sustained effort in the last month, since the last league game.

The management have played a big part and the players have bought into that as well. When you are down at rock bottom, there's only one way out."

This decade, there's been few counties as adept at what Ian Dowie would call "bouncebackability". Today will tell though if this year has been one fall too many.

TYRONE SET FOR PERFECT TEST AND PERFECT START
ULSTER SFC FIRST ROUND FERMANAGH v TYRONE

Clones, 2.15 Referee M Duffy (Sligo) Live, RTE Two, 1.45 This is a dangerous game for Tyrone, but yet could prove to be the ideal test for them too. It's not just the top three teams in Ulster that are all on the one side of the draw this year; though the recent league might hide it, a deeper analysis of the last six years will show the fourth . . .

Fermanagh . . . is too. And while there's a lot of talk in Fermanagh that's closer to wishful thinking than positive thinking, the team's Tyrone-born trainer Conal Sheridan isn't pushing it when he claims that on paper Fermanagh's starting 15 are the equal of Tyrone. For what they lack in form, Fermanagh make up in experience.

That's where the parallel with the sides' clash in 2004 is stretched. That day Fermanagh were the unknown quantity; this year, Tyrone, especially up front, are. Tommy McGuigan and Colm Cavanagh might be making their debuts but for years both their fathers have been saying they're as gifted as their famous brothers, while Niall Gormley, a former St Michael's, Enniskillen star, is a potential, if unproven, match winner.

Some match-ups will be vital, like the battle between the 2004 All Star midfield tandem of Marty McGrath and Sean Cavanagh, and while Eamonn Maguire has been easily Fermanagh's best player this year, Ryan McMenamin (left) has a habit of picking up the opposing team's best forward and snuffing them out. Fermanagh will need at least a goal to win this game but with Ger Cavlan and Owen Mulligan to call from the bench, Tyrone will probably shade it by two or three points.
Verdict Tyrone

FERMANAGH C Breen; S Goan, B Owens, N Bogue; S Lyons, S McDermott, T McElroy; M McGrath, M Murphy; M Little, T Brewster, E Maguire; C McElroy, C O'Reilly, C Bradley TYRONE J Devine; R McMenamin, C McGinley, D Carlin; D Harte, C Gormley, Justin McMahon; Kevin Hughes, S Cavanagh; B Dooher, T McGuigan, R Mellon; N Gormley, C Cavanagh, C McCullagh