Rory Gallagher warns Derry must be more clinical in Ulster Championship semi-final

Goals from Shane McGuigan and Paul Cassidy had Derry leading 2-09 to 0-05 at half-time and despite Fermanagh's Che Cullen helping himself to a brace of goals in the second period, Derry had only a McGuigan penalty to show for their second half efforts despite carving opening a host of goal chances. Derry never looked in any danger of being caught but Gallagher, who confirmed Conor Glass was only withdrawn as a precautionary measure, says Derry have to be more ruthless as the championship progresses.

"We should have had another handful of goals and I would be disappointed on that, " admitted the Oak Leaf manager, "I'm not too happy with some of the individuals concerned or the decision making. I don't take excuses, blasting balls wide or over the bar and not passing to the players in the best position. Look, that's room to improve for us but it's a good position to be in when you score 3-17 on your first day out.

"Since we got promoted, since we beat Dublin, we just had to keep our focus on Clare and then we came down a good bit because we wanted to be up for the National League and be up for the start of the year given the Glen players not being available.

"We came down after and to be honest we weren't even too up for today, we just wanted to ease into it and then move on into the Championship."

Derry's dominant first half gave way to a more chaotic second period in which Fermanagh twice prospered from high balls to the edge of the Oak Leaf, an area normally patrolled by Conor Glass who had been substituted by that stage.

"Conor is fine," explained Gallagher, "We thought in the immediate aftermath of the (Dublin) game that is was a hamstring but it is just a bit of nerve trouble running down his back. He had recovered and trained well all week. The idea was to play him for 45-50 minutes and he probably just felt he wanted to give it a go after half-time. We talked about taking him out because the game was up and he just said he was starting to feel the back a bit again so we took him out.

"Am I over concerned (by the goals conceded)? No but I'm disappointed. They were long balls in and then they got the breaks. Maybe Fermanagh seen something there to play on, I don't know but we would take comfort from the fact Fermanagh resorted to that quite early on. They were struggling to break us down, they weren't going to get a goal any other way and I don't see Tyrone or Monaghan going with that game-plan. If they do we will have to handle it better, we have to learn how to handle it.

"Even though we lost the breaks it shouldn't have ended up in the net twice but it did."